in's wicker-chair by the open window, where you can smell the
sea and the fields together, and I'll fetch you a sup of Daisy's new
milk, for you look quite faint and moithered, like a lost and weary
bird, my pretty. Yes, just like a lost and weary bird."

"You are right," murmured the girl through her pale lips; then aloud,
"have your own way, for you were ever an obstinate woman, Catharine,
and fetch me a draught of Daisy's sweet milk and a crust of the old
brown loaf, and I will thank you and go; but not before you have told
me about Margaret--all that you know, and that you hope and fear,
Catharine."

"Heaven bless you, Miss Crystal, it is the same tender heart as ever,
I see. Yes, you shall hear all I know; and that's little enough, I'll
be bound." And so saying, she hustled up her dress over her linsey
petticoat, and, taking a tin dipper from the dresser, was presently
heard calling cheerfully to her milky favorite in the paddock, on her
way to the dairy.

Left to herself, the girl threw herself down--not in the wicker-chair,
where the cat lay like a furry ball simmering in the sun, but on the
old brown settle behind the door, where she could rest her head
against the wall, and see and not be seen.

She had taken off her broad-brimmed hat, and it lay on the table
beside her; and the sunlight streamed through the lattice window full
on her face.

Such a young face, and--Heaven help her--such a sad face; so beautiful
too, in spite of the lines that sorrow had evidently traced on it, and
the hard bitter curves round the mouth.

The dark dreamy eyes, the pale olive complexion, the glossy hair--in
color the sun-steeped blackness of the south--the full curled lips and
grand profile, might have befitted a Vashti; just so might the
spotless queen have carried her uncrowned head when she left the gates
of Shushan, and have trailed her garments in the dust with a mien as
proud and as despairing.

There she sat motionless, looking over the harvest-fields, while
Catharine spread a clean coarse cloth on the small oaken table beside
her, and served up a frugal meal of brown bread, honey, and milk, and
then stood watching her while the stranger eat sparingly and as if
only necessity compelled.

"There," she said at last, looking up at Catharine with a soft
pathetic smile that lent new beauty to her face; "I have done justice
to your delicious fare; now draw your chair closer, for I am starving
for news of Margaret, and