o--and it is very pleasant here," said the minister, and he sat down
again.

Miss Elizabeth took her work, and they were all silent for a while, and
in the silence a sudden sense of embarrassment and discomfort seized
Katie Fleming. She had a book in her hand, but she was not sure whether
she ought to read or not. She would have liked to go with it to the
side-table, where Miss Elizabeth had carried the lamp before she sat
down, or even out into the kitchen to see Sally for a while.

"Are you deep in your story already? Well, take your book to the lamp,
if you like, for a little while," said Miss Elizabeth, just as if she
had known her thoughts.

But Katie would not have liked her to know her thoughts. She was glad
to go to the lamp, but she did not care for her story. She was thinking
of something else, of a single word she had heard one day, which put
together significantly the names of the minister and her friend. She
had been indignant at first. "They were just friends," she had said to
herself. Afterward she could not help giving them a good many of her
thoughts, and she was not sure about it. As she sat with the book on
the table before her, shading her eyes with her hands, she felt a little
guilty and greatly interested, for the story before her was better than
any story in a book.

Perhaps she ought to go away, she thought again. It was not right to
listen, and she could not help listening. But indeed there was nothing
said which all the world might not hear. Mrs Varney had burned her
hand. Old Mrs Lawrence was sick, and Miss Elizabeth promised to go and
see her. Then Mr Maxwell told her about a meeting he had attended in
Fairfax, and about another that he meant to attend, and so on.

"It might be grannie and he," said Katie, with a little impatient
wonder. "Only grannie would say it all a great deal better, and not
just `yes' and `no,' and `I hope so indeed,' like Miss Elizabeth. What
has come to her, I wonder? Mrs Stacy's rheumatism, and the mothers'
meeting at North Gore. That is not how people talk, surely--when--
when--"

Suddenly looking up she met Miss Elizabeth's eye, and reddened, and hung
her head. Then she rose as Miss Elizabeth beckoned to her, and came to
the fireside again, still holding her book in her hand.

After that Miss Elizabeth took a letter which she had that day received
from her brother Clifton, and read bits of it aloud. It was a very
amusing letter, she seem