gave me."

"Oh, yes, they did. We always liked to hear all about what you were
doing, and about the children and Miss Gertrude. Why, I felt quite as
though I had known Miss Gertrude for a long time when I first met her
here the other day. I almost think I should have known her if I had met
her anywhere. She looks older and more mature than I should have
supposed from your letters, and then I used to fancy that she might be
at times a little overbearing and exacting."

"Effie, I never could have said that about Miss Gertrude."

"No, you never said it, but I gathered it--less from what you said than
from what you didn't say, however. Has Miss Gertrude changed, do you
think?"

"No, oh no! she is just the very same. And yet I am not sure. I
remember thinking when I first saw her that she was changed. She looks
older, I think. I wonder if she will come to-day? She promised."

"But it rains so heavily," said Effie. "No, I don't think she will come
to-day. It would not be wise."

But Effie was mistaken. She had hardly spoken when the door opened, and
Gertrude entered.

"Through all the rain!" exclaimed Effie and Christie, in a breath.

"Yes, I thought you would be glad to see me this dull day," said Miss
Gertrude, laughing. "I am none the worse for the rain, but I can't say
as much for the horses, however. But Mr Sherwood was obliged to leave
in the train this afternoon, and I begged to come in the carriage with
him. Peter is to come for me again when he has taken him to the
station. See what I have brought you," she added, opening the basket
she carried in her hand. There were several things for Christie in the
basket, but the _something_ which Miss Gertrude meant was a bunch of
buttercups placed against a spray of fragrant cedar and a few brown
birch leaves.

"We gathered them in the orchard yesterday. They are the very last of
the season. We gathered them because Claude said you once told him that
they reminded you of home; and then you told him of a shady place where
they used to grow, and of the birch-tree by the burn. I had heard about
the burn myself, but not about the buttercups."

Coming as they did, the little tuft of wild flowers pleased Christie
better than the fairest bouquet of hothouse exotics could have done.

Effie laughed.

"Buttercups are not great favourites with us at home," she said. "They
generally grow best on poor, worn-out land."

"They are the very first I have