oung women perfectly aware of their own value, and in no hurry
to force an estimate of it on the male world.

'Well,' said Rose deliberately, her delicate cheek flushed with her
gymnastics, her eyes sparkling, 'there is no saying. "Propinquity
does it"--as Mrs. Thornburgh is always reminding us. But where _can_
Catherine be? She went out directly after lunch.'

'She has, gone out to see that youth who hurt his back at the Tysons--at
least I heard her talking to mamma about him, and she went out with a
basket that looked like beef-tea.'

Rose frowned a little.

'And I suppose I ought to have been to the school or to see Mrs.
Robson instead of fiddling all the afternoon. I dare say I ought--only
unfortunately I like my fiddle, and I don't like stuffy cottages, and as
for the goody books, I read them so badly that the old women themselves
come down upon me.'

'I seem to have been making the best of both worlds,' said Agnes
placidly. 'I haven't been doing anything I don't like, but I got hold
of that dress she brought home to make for little Emma Payne and nearly
finished the skirt, so that I feel as good as when one has been twice to
church on a wet Sunday. Ah, there is Catherine, I heard the gate.'

As she spoke steps were heard approaching through the clump of trees
which sheltered the little entrance gate, and as Rose sprang to her feet
a tall figure in white and gray appeared against the background of the
sycamores, and came quickly toward the sisters.

'Dears, I am so sorry; I am afraid you have been waiting for me. But
poor Mrs. Tyson wanted me so badly that I could not leave her. She had
no one else to help her or to be with her till that eldest girl of hers
came home from work.'

'It doesn't matter,' said, Rose, as Catherine put her arm round her
shoulder; 'mamma has been fidgeting, and as for Agnes, she looks as if
she never wanted to move again.'

Catherine's clear eyes, which at the moment seemed to be full of inward
light, kindled in them by some foregoing experience, rested kindly, but
only half consciously, on her younger sister as Agnes softly nodded
and smiled to her. Evidently she was a good deal older than the other
two--she looked about six-and-twenty, a young and vigorous woman in the
prime of health and strength. The lines of the form were rather thin and
spare, but they were softened by the loose bodice and long full skirt of
her dress, and by the folds of a large, white muslin handkerchief