ttle housekeeper.

After dinner all were more at their ease. Mr Snow walked up and down
the gallery, past the open window, and Arthur sat there beside him.
They were not so far withdrawn from the rest but that they could join in
the conversation that went on within. Fanny, tired of the dignity of
housekeeping, brought a footstool and sat down beside Graeme; and Janet,
seeing how naturally and lovingly the hand of the elder sister rested on
the pretty bowed head, gave the little lady more of her attention than
she had hitherto done, and grew rather silent in the scrutiny. Graeme
grew silent too. Indeed she had been rather silent all the afternoon;
partly because it pleased her best to listen, and partly because she was
not always sure of her voice when she tried to speak.

She was not allowed to be silent long, however, or to fall into
recollections too tender to be shared by them all. Rose's extraordinary
restlessness prevented that. She seemed to have lost the power of
sitting still, and flitted about from one to another; now exchanging a
word with Fanny or Will, now joining in the conversation that was going
on between Mr Snow and Arthur outside. At one moment she was hanging
over Graeme's chair, at the next, kneeling at Mrs Snow's side; and all
the time with a face so radiant that even Will noticed it, and begged to
be told the secret of her delight.

The truth was, Rose was having a little private jubilation of her own.
She would not have confessed it to Graeme, she was shy of confessing it
to herself, but as the time of Mrs Snow's visit approached, she had not
been quite free from misgivings. She had a very distinct recollection
of their friend, and loved her dearly. But she found it quite
impossible to recall the short active figure, the rather scant dress,
the never-tiring hands, without a fear that the visit might be a little
disappointing--not to themselves. Janet would always be Janet to them--
the dear friend of their childhood, with more real worth in her little
finger than there was in ten such fine ladies as Mrs Grove. But Rose,
grew indignant beforehand, as she imagined the supercilious smiles and
forced politeness of that lady, and perhaps of Fanny too, when all this
worth should appear in the form of a little, plain old woman, with no
claim to consideration on account of externals.

But that was all past now. And seeing her sitting there in her full
brown travelling-dress, her snowy necke