s to live
cheap; or if he is thinking of setting up a store where a person can get
honest wash-goods; or if he has sickly children, and isn't particular
about schools, I suppose he might as well come to Lethbury as not."

"But he has none of those reasons for settling here," said Mrs. Cristie.

"Well, then," remarked Mrs. Petter, somewhat severely, "he must be weak
in his mind. And if he's that, I don't think he's needed in Lethbury."

As she finished speaking the good woman turned and beheld her husband
just coming out of the house. Being very desirous of having her talk
with him, and not very well pleased at the manner in which her mission
had been received, she abruptly betook herself to the house.

"Now, then," said Mrs. Cristie, turning to Lodloe, "what do you think of
that very explicit opinion?"

"Does it agree with yours?" he asked.

"Wonderfully," she replied. "I could not have imagined that Mrs. Petter
and I were so much of a mind."

"Mrs. Cristie," said Lodloe, "I drop Lethbury, and here I stand with
nothing but myself to offer you."

The moon had now set, the evening was growing dark, and the lady began
to feel a little chilly about the shoulders.

"Mr. Lodloe," she asked, "what did you do with that bunch of sweet peas
you picked this afternoon?"

"They are in my room," he said eagerly. "I have put them in water. They
are as fresh as when I gathered them."

"Well," she said, speaking rather slowly, "if to-morrow, or next day, or
any time when it may be convenient, you will bring them to me, I think I
will take them."

[Illustration: THE BABY AND THE SWEET-PEA BLOSSOM.]

In about half an hour Mrs. Cristie went into the house, feeling that she
had stayed out entirely too late. In her room she found Ida reading by a
shaded lamp, and the baby sleeping soundly. The nurse-maid looked up
with a smile, and then turned her face again to her book. Mrs. Cristie
stepped quietly to the mantelpiece, on which she had set the little jar
from Florence, but to her surprise there was nothing in it. The
sweet-pea blossom was gone. After looking here and there upon the floor,
she went over to Ida, and in a low voice asked her if she had seen
anything of a little flower that had been in that jar.

"Oh, yes," said the girl, putting down her book; "I gave it to baby to
amuse him, and the instant he took it he stopped crying, and very soon
went to sleep. There it is; I declare, he is holding it yet."

Mrs. Cristie