look for happiness alone in rural quiet and
seclusion. Do you accede to my project, sis?"

"With all my heart."

"Then see that you keep that heart free, and not, before I carry my plan
into execution, have given it to the charge of some gallant knight, and
left me desolate in my pretty cottage on the verdant shores of
Tennessee."

"Ay, and see that you don't find some fairer flower to bloom in that
cottage home, and rudely toss me from the window," exclaimed Winnie,
with a merry laugh.

"No fear of that," said Wayland; "now I must leave you. Expect me in a
week again."

And with an affectionate salute the brother and sister parted.

CHAPTER XI.

"Ay, there are memories that will not vanish,
Thoughts of the past we have no power to banish;
To show the heart how powerless mere will;
For we may suffer, and yet struggle still;
It is not at our choice that we forget--
That is a power no science teaches yet,
The heart may be a dark and closed-up tomb,
But memory stands a ghost amid the gloom."

Miss Jerusha Sharpwell and Mrs. Fleetfoot had dropped in to take tea
with Mrs. Sykes on a pleasant September evening. The latter lady, as in
duty bound, was highly pleased to see her dear friends, and forthwith
ordered Hannah, her servant-girl, to make a batch of soda rolls, with a
bit of shortening rubbed in, and just step over to Mrs. Frye's, and ask
that good lady "if she would not be so very kind and obliging as to lend
Mrs. Sykes a plateful of her nice, sweet doughnuts, as she had visitors
come in unexpectedly, and was not quite prepared to entertain them as
she could wish." Thus were the guests provided for.

"How happened it you were absent from the last sewing circle, sister
Sykes?" inquired Miss Sharpwell. "We had an unusually interesting
season. Several new names were added to our list, and sister Fleetfoot,
here, entertained us with a most amusing account of Pamela Gaddie's
marriage with Mr. Smith, the missionary to Bengal."

"Indeed! I regret I was denied the pleasure of listening to the recital;
but company detained me from the circle."

"Ah! who was visiting you?" asked Mrs. Fleetfoot.

"The Churchills, from Cincinnati," answered Mrs. Sykes. "You know they
are particular friends of my husband."

"Yes; is their son married yet?"

"No; and he called on Alice Orville every