reading and
dreading this evening, and shrinking from the idea of meeting the Greys,
and wanting to write at the last moment to say that we would not come;--
and it turns out--Oh, so differently! Think of day after day, week
after week of pure country life! When they were planning for us
to-night, and talking of the brook, and lanes, and meadows, it made my
very heart dance."

"Thank God!" said Margaret. "When your heart dances, there is nothing
left to wish."

"But did not yours? Had you ever such a prospect before,--such a
prospect of delicious pleasure for weeks together,--except perhaps when
we caught our first sight of the sea?"

"Nothing can ever equal that," replied Margaret. "Do not you hear now
the shout we gave when we saw the sparkles on the horizon,--heaving
sparkles,--when we were a mile off, and mamma held me up that I might
see it better; and baby,--dear baby,--clapped his little hands? Does it
not seem like yesterday?"

"Like yesterday: and yet, if baby had lived, he would now have been our
companion, taking the place of all other friends to us. I thought of
him when I saw Sydney Grey; but he would have been very unlike Sydney
Grey. He would have been five years older, but still different from
what Sydney will be at eighteen--graver, more manly."

"How strange is the idea of having a brother!" said Margaret. "I never
see girls with their brothers but I watch them, and long to feel what it
is, just for one hour. I wonder what difference it would have made
between you and me, if we had had a brother."

"You and he would have been close friends--always together, and I should
have been left alone," said Hester, with a sigh. "Oh, yes," she
continued, interrupting Margaret's protest, "it would have been so.
There can never be the same friendship between three as between two."

"And why should you have been the one left out?" asked Margaret. "But
this is all nonsense--all a dream," she added. "The reality is that
baby died--still a baby--and we know no more of what he would have been,
than of what he is. The real truth is, that you and I are alone, to be
each other's only friend."

"It makes me tremble to think of it, Margaret. It is not so long since
our home seemed full. How we used all to sit round the fire, and laugh
and play with papa, as if we were not to separate till we had all grown
old: and now, young as we are, here we are alone! How do we know that
we shall be left to each