ghtly way, on
rheumatic limbs, towards the grave.

"Have you seen dear Miss Priscilla?" asked Virginia, striving to turn
the conversation away from herself, and shivering with terror lest the
other should ask after Oliver, whom she had always adored.

"I stopped to inquire about her on my way down. She had had a bad night,
the maid said, and Doctor Fraser is afraid that the cold she got when
she went driving the other day has settled upon her lungs."

"Oh, I am so sorry!" exclaimed Virginia, but she was conscious of an
immeasurable relief because Miss Priscilla's illness was absorbing Mrs.
Peachey's thoughts.

"Well, I must be going on," said the little lady, and though she
flinched with pain when she moved, the habitual cheerfulness of her face
did not alter. "Come to see me as often as you can, Jinny. I can't get
about much now, and it is such a pleasure for me to have somebody to
chat with. People don't visit now," she added regretfully, "as much as
they used to."

"So many things have changed," said Virginia, and her eyes, as she gazed
up at the blue sky over the market, had a yearning look in them. So many
things had changed--ah, there was the pang!

On her way home, overcome by the fear that Miss Priscilla might die
thinking herself neglected, Virginia stopped at the Academy, and was
shown into the chamber behind the parlour, which had once been a
classroom. In the middle of her big tester bed, the teacher was lying,
propped among pillows, with her cameo brooch fastening the collar of her
nightgown and a purple wool shawl, which Virginia had knit for her,
thrown over her shoulders.

"Dear Miss Priscilla, I've thought of you so often. Are you better
to-day?"

"A little, Jinny, but don't worry about me. I'll be out of bed in a day
or two." Though she was well over eighty-five, she still thought of
herself as a middle-aged woman, and her constant plans for the future
amazed Virginia, whose hold upon life was so much slighter, so much less
tenacious. "Have you been to market, dear? I miss so being able to sit
by the window and watch people go by. Then I always knew when you and
Susan were on your way to Mr. Dewlap."

"Yes, I've begun to go again. It fills in the day."

"I never approved of your letting your servants market for you, Jinny.
It would have shocked your mother dreadfully."

"I know," said Virginia, and her voice, in spite of her effort to speak
cheerfully, had a weary sound, which made her ad