rchief and pretty quaint cap,
looking as if her life might have been passed with folded hands in a
velvet arm-chair, Rose's misgivings gave place to triumphant
self-congratulation, which was rather uncomfortable, because it could
not well be shared. She had assisted at the arrangement of the contents
of the travelling trunk in wardrobe and bureau, and this might have
helped her a little.

"A soft black silk, and a grey poplin, and such lovely neckerchiefs and
handkerchiefs of lawn--is not little Emily a darling to make her mother
look so nice? And such a beauty of a shawl!--that's the one Sandy
brought."

And so Rose came down-stairs triumphant, without a single drawback to
mar the pleasure with which she regarded Janet as she sat in the
arm-chair, letting her grave admiring glances fall alternately on Graeme
and the pretty creature at her feet. All Rosie's admiration was for
Mrs Snow.

"Is she not just like a picture sitting there?" she whispered to Will,
as she passed him.

And indeed Rosie's admiration was not surprising; she was the very Janet
of old times; but she sat there in Fanny's handsome drawing-room, with
as much appropriateness as she had ever sat in the manse kitchen long
ago, and looked over the vases and elegant trifles on the centre-table
to Graeme with as much ease and self-possession as if she had been "used
with" fine things all her life, and had never held anxious counsels with
her over jackets and trowsers, and little half-worn stockings and shoes.

And yet there was no real cause for surprise. For Janet was one of
those whose modest, yet firm self-respect, joined with a just
appreciation of all worldly things, leaves to changing circumstances no
power over their unchanging worth.

That Mr Snow should spend the time devoted to their visit within four
walls, was not to be thought of. The deacon, who, in the opinion of
those who knew him best, "had the faculty of doing 'most anything," had
certainly not the faculty of sitting still in a chair like other people.
The hall or the gallery was his usual place of promenade, but when the
interest of the conversation kept him with the rest, Fanny suffered
constant anxiety as to the fate of ottomans, vases and little tables. A
judicious, re-arrangement of these soon gave him a clearer space for his
perambulations; but a man accustomed to walk miles daily on his own
land, could not be expected to content himself long within such narrow
limits. S