with Norman and Hilda. Oh! I did so long to go with them! I
had almost made up my mind to go, and leave Rosie at home. I was glad I
didn't, afterward."

"And why did you not?" demanded her friend.

"For one thing, we had been away a long time in the summer, and I did
not like to leave home again; Arthur did not encourage me to go. It was
on the very night that Norman went away that Arthur told me of his
engagement."

"I daresay you did right to bide at home, then."

"Yes, I knew it was best, but that did not prevent me wishing very much
to go. I had the greatest desire to go to you. I had no one to speak
to. I daresay it would not have seemed half so bad, if I could have
told you all about it."

"My dear, you had your sister."

"Yes, but Rosie was as bad as I was. It seemed like the breaking up of
all things. I know now, how wrong and foolish I was, but I could not
help being wretched then."

"It was a great change, certainly, and I dinna wonder that the prospect
startled you."

Mrs Snow spoke very quietly; she was anxious to hear more; and
forgetting her prudence in the pleasure it gave her to unburden her
heart to her friend, Graeme went on rapidly,--

"If it only had been any one else, I thought. We didn't know Fanny very
well, then--hardly at all, indeed, and she seemed such a vain, frivolous
little thing, so different from what I thought Arthur's wife should be;
and I disliked her stepmother so much more than I ever disliked any one,
I think, except perhaps Mrs Page, when we first came to Merleville. Do
you mind her first visit with Mrs Merle, Janet?"

"I mind it well," said Mrs Snow, smiling. "She was no favourite of
mine. I daresay I was too hard on her sometimes."

Graeme laughed at the remembrance of the "downsettings" which "the
smith's wife" had experienced at Janet's hands in those early days. The
pause gave her time to think, and she hastened to turn the conversation
from Arthur and his marriage to Merleville and the old times. Janet did
not try to hinder it, and answered her questions, and volunteered some
new items on the theme, but when there came a pause, she asked
quietly,--

"And when was the other time you thought of coming to see us all?"

"Oh! that was before, in the spring. Arthur proposed that we should go
to Merleville, but we went to the seaside, you know. It was on my
account; I was ill, and the doctor said the sea-breeze was what I
needed."

"The breezes