use Angel--because Miss
Angelica will be up; so good-bye, and thank you very much indeed for
coming.'

And the next minute Miss Betty was gone, starting off in her usual
whirlwind fashion, then pulling herself up and marching along solemnly
and with the dignity which became the aunt.

But she forgot her dignity when she got upstairs, and met her sister
coming out of her bedroom to look for her with a little shade of
anxiety in her face. Angelica Wyndham was one of those very gentle,
thoughtful people who are so tender about their neighbours' happiness,
so fearful of hurting and slow to put their own wishes forward, that we
hardly know how powerful that very gentleness makes them in their
little world. Everybody loved Angel, and said how sweet she was and
how pretty; but they hardly knew how they came to consider her and to
go out of their way to please her, just because she always thought so
much about other people that really it was a shame to vex her. She was
not particularly quick, except with that sort of quickness which we can
all learn by being thoughtful for others, and watchful to please and
help them. She was not nearly so clever as Betty, and she knew it
quite well, and was never a bit jealous when Betty passed her in class
and learnt her lessons in half the time; and Betty, on her side,
thought there was no one in all the world like Angel and would have
done anything to please her, and always hoped that one day she might be
half as wise and good. And so this morning, when she saw her sister
standing in the doorway, with the little worried anxious look in her
gentle eyes, she flung her arms round her, and stood on tip-toe to kiss
her, exclaiming eagerly:

'Angel dear, did you wonder where I was? Did I wake you getting up? I
left the blinds down on purpose. I've only been talking to Pete and
Nancy, and telling them all about it, and Nancy's brought us some eggs,
and Pete's got such a basket of mushrooms!'

'You haven't been on the common for mushrooms this morning, have you,
dear?' asked Angelica.

'Oh no, no, of course not, Angel; how could I? No, I told him perhaps
I shouldn't be able to go with him now. You needn't be afraid, Angel,
I've told him all about it, and how we are going to grow up now at
once, as we have to be Godfrey's maiden aunts; and I told him to call
me Miss Elizabeth, and he quite understands.'

Angel, with an arm round Betty's neck among the tumbled curls,
wondered, in he