r damp needle and thread didn't get on very
fast, and Angel took it quietly away from her and carried it out of
doors. Penny had a sort of idea that there was something wrong in
sewing at mourning dresses in the garden, but Angel thought it didn't
matter. Betty felt as if the glory of the spring-time, the flowers in
the borders and the birds' song and the vivid green of the meadows,
were like a mockery of their grief, but to Angel the sunny sweetness
brought a strange comfort which she did not try to understand. Martha
had promised to come round and help her, but it was afternoon now and
she had not come. She was very busy at home, Angel supposed, but still
it was not like her not to keep an appointment when she had said she
would come. Betty sat on the grass at her sister's feet. She had her
work, too, but it did not get on very fast. She laid it down at last
and leaned back against the stone shoulder of Demoiselle Jehanne, much
as she had been used to do in the days when she was a little girl and
used to come to her for comfort. There was something about the
peacefulness of the still figure under the flowers which soothed Betty
still, she hardly knew how. She remembered, almost with a smile, how
Godfrey had always believed that Miss Jane's heart was broken by a
naughty nephew, and he had been so afraid of the same thing happening
to her and Angel. She had almost come to believe in the story herself,
and as her fingers strayed half caressingly over the familiar broken
face she wondered how Miss Jane felt when she was a living, loving,
sorrowing woman here at Oakfield. Did she know about the dreary blank,
the aching longing which had come to the little girls who used to play
beside her? And a hundred years hence would it matter as little to any
one that Godfrey lay under the tossing Channel waters as it did to-day
that a sad woman's heart had broken long ago? A timid step on the path
made them look up, and there stood Nancy, waiting with much less
assurance than usual for them to notice her. Angel held out her hand.

'Well, Nancy dear,' she said, 'where is your mother?'

Nancy for answer began to cry.

'O Miss Angel, you won't be angry, will you?' she sobbed; 'Patty said I
mustn't come, but I couldn't help it, miss.'

'We like you to come, dear,' Angel began gently; but Nancy went on
between her sobs:

'It's him--the captain--he's come home, Miss Angel.'

'The captain! When did he come?' cried both