he sapphire blue of
Lake Champlain.

"Is that orchard ours?" she asked Jonathan.

"That it is. I helped my father plant those thar trees myself and
they're the best bearin' on the hul of Nor' Hero!"

Nancy stood irresolute. She wanted to explore further--to run out
among the apple trees to the very cliff of the lake. But she was
bursting to write to Claire--there was already so much to tell her.

So with one long, lingering look she retraced her steps back to the
house. As she passed slowly under the trees she was startled by the
movement of a single slat in one of the upstairs blinds. And
instinctively she knew that an eye peeped at her from behind it.

Miss Milly--it must, of course, be the "poor Miss Milly" of whom Webb
had spoken!

Nancy closed the front door softly behind her that it might not disturb
Miss Sabrina's hour of rest. Then she tiptoed up the long stairway.
It took but a moment's calculating to decide which door led to the room
where the blind had opened. She stopped before it and tapped gently
with one knuckle.

"Come in," a voice answered.

Opening the door, Nancy walked into a room the counterpart of her own,
except that a couch was drawn before the blinded windows. And against
it half-lay a frail little woman with snow-white hair and tired eyes,
shadowing a face that still held a trace of youth.

As Nancy hesitated on the threshold a voice singularly sweet called to
her:

"Come in, my dear! I am your Aunt Milly."

CHAPTER IV

AUNT MILLY

"So this is Anne Leavitt!"

But Aunt Milly did not say it at all like Aunt Sabrina, or even
crisply, like B'lindy's "so _you're_ the niece," but with a warm,
little trill in her voice that made Nancy feel as though she was very,
very glad to have her there!

Two frail little hands caught Nancy's and squeezed them in such a human
way that Nancy leaned over impulsively and kissed Miss Milly on her
cheek.

"I am so very glad to know you." Aunt Milly dashed a tear away from
her cheek. "I've counted the hours--after Sabrina told me you were
coming. To-day I lay here listening for Webb and then must have fallen
asleep, so that when you really came I didn't know it. Wasn't that
silly? Sit right down, dear--no, not in that old chair, it's so
uncomfortable--pull up that rocker. Let me get a good look at you!"

Nancy did not even dread Miss Milly's "good look"--she was so
delightfully human! She pulled the rocker close to the loung