ose. Her eyes are large and expressive, but touched, like her lips,
with a suspicion of melancholy that renders them only a degree more
sweet and earnest.

There is a spirituality about her, a calm, a peace that shines out of
these dark Irish eyes, and rests upon her perfect lips, as it were a
lingering breath of the heaven from whence she came.

She stands now, hesitating a little, with her hands loosely
clasped,--brown little hands, but beautifully shaped. Indeed, all her
skin owes more of its coloring to Phoebus Apollo than nature intended.
She draws her breath somewhat quickly, and then, as though anxious to
get through the troublous task assigned her, says, nervously, in a low,
sweet voice,--

"I am Monica."

As she says this, she glances entreatingly from one old lady to the
other, with some trouble in her great eyes, and some tears. Then all at
once her lips tremble to a smile, and a soft light breaks upon her face.

"_You_ are Aunt Priscilla," she says, turning to Miss Blake; "I know you
by your dark eyes, and by your _pretty_ hair!"

At the sound of her voice the two old ladies wake from their
abstraction.

"Yes, yes, it is your aunt Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, eagerly, with
a sudden pleased smile. Had the compliment been made to herself she
could not possibly have appeared more delighted, and certainly would not
have betrayed her satisfaction so openly. "Her hair," she says, "was
always beautiful."

As for Miss Priscilla, she is smiling too, but in a shamefaced fashion,
and is blushing a warm pretty crimson, such as a girl of seventeen might
be guilty of, listening to a first word of love.

She takes Monica's right hand in hers and pats it softly; and Miss
Penelope takes her left; and then the two old ladies stoop forward, and,
one after the other, kiss the pale, girlish cheek, and with the kiss
take her at once and forever into their very hearts.

"But surely, dear child, you did not come alone?" says Miss Priscilla,
presently, calling to remembrance the fact that there ought to be two
other Beresfords somewhere.

"No; Terence and Katherine are with me."

"But where, my dear?"

"Well, I _think_ they are standing on the mat, just outside the door,"
says Monica, blushing and laughing; and then she says, rather louder,
"Terry and Kit, you may come in now. It is all right."

As to what was evidently supposed not to be "all right" up to this, the
Misses Blake have no time to decide upon befor