hat more toward me,
and by her shut eyes and even breathing I could guess that she slept. I
sat me down in the window to wait, when mine hands were washen: for I
thought some should come after a while, and may-be should not count it
right that I left _Milisent_ all alone. I guess it were a good
half-hour I there sat, and _Milly_ slept on. At the last come _Mother_,
her eyes very red as though she had wept much.

"Doth she sleep, _Edith_?" she whispered.

I said, "Ay, _Mother_: she hath slept this half-hour or more."

"Poor child!" she saith. "If only I could have wist sooner! How much I
might have saved her! O poor child!"

The water welled up in her eyes again, and she went away, something in
haste. I had thought _Mother_ should be angered, and I was something
astonied to see how soft she were toward _Milly_. A while after, Aunt
_Joyce_ come in: but _Milly_ slept on.

"I am fain to see that," saith she, nodding her head toward the bed. "A
good sign. Yet I would I knew exactly how she hath taken it."

"I am afeared she may be angered, Aunt _Joyce_, to be thus served of one
she trusted."

"I hope so much. 'Twill be the best thing she can be. The question is
what she loved--whether himself or his flattering of herself. She'll
soon get over the last, for it shall be nought worser with her than hurt
vanity."

"Not the first, _Aunt_?"

"I do not know, _Edith_," she saith, and crushed in her lips. "That
hangs on what sort of woman she be. There shall be a wound, in either
case: but with some it gets cicatrised over and sound again with time,
and with other some it tarries an open issue for ever. It hangs all on
the manner of woman."

"What should it be with you, Aunt _Joyce_?" said I, though I were
something feared of mine own venturesomeness.

"What it _is_, _Edith_," she made answer, crushing in her lips again,
"is the open issue, bandaged o'er so that none knows it is there save He
to whose eyes all things be open. Child, there be some things in life
wherein the only safe confidant thou canst have is _Jesu Christ_. I say
so much, by reason that thine elders think it best--and I likewise--that
ye maids should be told somewhat more than ye have heard aforetime. Ay,
I give full assent thereto. I only held out for one thing--that I, not
your mother, should be she that were to tell it."

We were silent a moment, and then _Milisent_ stirred in her sleep. Aunt
_Joyce_ went to her.

"Awake, my