ts which follow a fair sun-setting.

"Yes, dear; and life's after-glow is even more beautiful than that; for
instead of being the blending of day and night together, it is the
blending of day with day."

"Day with day?" lisped thoughtful Olive.

"Yes; life's beautiful days here with life's long beautiful day
hereafter," returned Madame Giche, her eyes glistening with her own
sweet thoughts. "But come, dears, the present time is the day with which
you have to do, with all its hopes and opportunities. I want you young
larks to sing me the quartette we were talking of the other day. Where
is Miss Gordon?"

"I am here, Madame Giche," came from a distant window. "Do you require
my services?"

"Do you play the accompaniment, and let me fancy myself--where shall I
say, Sybil?"

"Sailing down the river in the park by moonlight, the same as we and
Miss Gordon did last summer," was the ready answer.

Madame Giche laughed.

"But that would be too romantic. Fancy what it would be to come back
from such fairyland doings to find myself an old woman, sitting on her
hearth, with four magpies chattering around her, asking her to make
herself ridiculous."

"I don't think you could be that," said flattering Jenny.

Then the four swept away to the piano, like a breath of a sweet spring
breeze, where Miss Gordon played, and the quartette was rendered fairly
well, Madame Giche sitting, a listening shadow, on the hearth.

"Thank you, dears," said she, when it came to an end, and a servant
announced, "Mary from the farm is come for the two young ladies,
Madame."

"Was it anything like sailing down the river?" asked Sybil, as they all
clustered round her.

"It was very sweet and beautiful," said the old lady kindly; then she
kissed her two guests "good night," and said, "No; not so late," to her
two nieces, when they pleaded to accompany them as far as the
five-barred gate.

Jenny was really a guest at the farm for a few days, sleeping with Inna,
but spending most of her time at the Owl's Nest.

It was just what Inna needed, with her pale cheeks and troubled heart.

"If I only knew _where_ Oscar was, I think I could bear it better," was
her cry. But Dr. Willett had to bear his ifs and regrets in silence, as
best he could, without change or comfort from anything or anybody, save
the going out among his patients. His fine face grew very grave and
sorrowful, his hair was whitening too, as the days glided on into weeks,
and no