age. And you'll not forget the stone seat,
Agatha? I hope no one will disturb it. Good-bye! poor old stone."

Saying this in a whisper, she stooped and patted it with her hand--the
thin white hand that might once have been so round, pretty, and young.
The act, natural even to childishness, might have made Agatha smile,
but for a certain something about Miss Valery that invested with dignity
even her simplicities. So, merely echoing "Goodbye, old stone!" she
followed Anne down the slope.

After a loud-lamenting adieu, especially from the Dugdale boys, Miss
Valery mounted her little carriage and drove away into the gathering
shadow--Agatha knew not where.

"What a good woman she is! I wish we were all like her!" she said,
thoughtfully.

"My dear, nobody can be, especially with a husband and four children. It
is a blessing to society in general that Anne Valery never married."

"But people do marry late in life sometimes. So may she. Do you think
she will?"

"Can't say! Don't know! Very mysterious!" ejaculated Harrie. "My brother
Fred once hinted--and Fred was a very fascinating young fellow when I
was a child--But all that belongs to the year One. I'll hold my tongue."

Agatha had too much delicacy to inquire further. Still, it seemed very
odd that there should be a general impression of Anne's early attachment
to Major Harper, in contradistinction to the old Squire's regretful hint
that she had refused his eldest son. But these scraps of romance, so far
back in the past, were useless searching.

"An excellent woman is Anne Valery," continued Harrie--"really
excellent: but sometimes rather a bore to her friends who have families.
My Duke often forgets he has four children to provide for, when he
listens to her charitable schemes. 'Twas but the other day he and she
were mad about some starving Cornish miners that she sent poor Mr.
Wilson to look after."

"Ah, I remember," cried Agatha, now interested in things which she had
before heard indifferently. She was thirsting for some opportunity of
doing good--of redeeming the long waste of idle years and unemployed
fortune. "Do tell me about those miners."

"Little to tell, my dear. Only philanthropic ideas about helping poor
wretches that had been thrown out of work by some cheating speculators
shutting up the mines. Anne sent Wilson to find out who the man was, and
what could be done. After that I never heard any more of it, nor did my
husband either.--Stop--don'