and nonsense!" was Miss Hildreth's inelegant reply.

"She is a dear girl, Isabelle. Why will you persist in disliking her
so?"

"Oh, pray spare me any panegyrics!" said Isabelle carelessly. "It is bad
enough to have Louis blazing up like a volcano if one has the temerity
to mention her ladyship's name."

"How is Louis?" asked Mrs. Kennard, finding she was treading on
dangerous ground.

"Oh, the same as usual. He looks like a ghost, and is about as cheerful
as a cemetery. He spends his holidays going over musty old letters in
papa's desk. I'm sure I don't see what fun he finds in it. It is so
selfish in him, when he might be giving mamma and me some pleasure--but
Louis never did think of anyone but himself. One day I found him
stretched across the desk and it gave me such a fright! You know what a
state my nerves are in. I thought he was in a fit or something,--he just
looked like death, and he didn't seem to hear me when I called. He had a
large envelope addressed to papa in his hand and there was another under
his arm that didn't look as if it had ever been opened, but I couldn't
see the address. I ran for mamma, but before we got back he was gone and
the letters with him. Whatever it was, it has had an awful effect upon
him, though he won't give us any satisfaction, you know how provoking he
is. It is my belief he is going into decline, and I have such a horror
of contagious diseases!

"If Evadne is so anxious to work, why doesn't she come and help mamma
and me? It is the least she could do after all we have done for her, but
as mamma says, 'It is just a specimen of the ingratitude there is in the
world.'"

* * * * *

The months rolled by and Evadne sat one afternoon in the
superintendent's reception room reading a letter which the postman had
just delivered. It bore the Vernon postmark.

She had seen but little of Mrs. Everidge through the years which
followed her graduation. She had been constantly busy and her aunt's
hands had been full, for her husband's health had failed utterly and he
demanded continual care. Now her long, beautiful ministry was over, for
Horace Everidge, serenely selfish to the last, had fallen into the
slumber which knows no earthly waking, and Aunt Marthe was free.

"I do not know what it means," she wrote, "but something tells me I
shall not be long in Vernon. I am just waiting to see what work the King
has for me to do."

Evadne pressed the letter