was much startled by her brother's demand. It struck, however, not
her conscience so much as her recollection, bringing back that past
which was still so near, yet which seemed a world away, in which she had
made so many anxious efforts to carry out her father's will and
considered it the main object of her life. A young wife who is happy,
and upon whom life smiles, can scarcely help looking back upon the time
when she was a girl with a sense of superiority, an amused and
affectionate contempt for herself. "How could I be so silly?" she will
say, and laugh, not without a passing blush. This was not exactly Lucy's
feeling; but in three years she had, even in her sheltered and happy
position, attained a certain acquaintance with life, and she saw
difficulties which in those former days had not been apparent to her.
When Jock began to recall these reminiscences it seemed to her as if she
saw once more the white commonplace walls of her father's sitting-room
rising about her, and heard him laying down the law which she had
accepted with such calm. She had seen no difficulty then. She had not
even been surprised by the burden laid upon her. It had appeared as
natural to obey him in matters which concerned large external interests,
and the well-being of strangers, as it was to fill him out a cup of tea.
But the interval of time, and the change of position, had made a great
difference; and when Jock asked, "Are you doing all he told you?" the
question brought a sudden surging of the blood to her head, which made a
singing in her ears and a giddiness in her brain. It seemed to place her
in front of something which must interrupt all her life and put a stop
to the even flow of her existence. She caught her breath. "Doing all he
told me!"

Jock, though he did not mean it, though he was no longer her
self-appointed guardian and guide, became to Lucy a monitor, recalling
her as to another world.

But the effect though startling was not permanent. They began to talk it
all over, and by dint of familiarity the impression wore away. The
impression, but not the talk. It gave the brother and sister just what
they wanted to bring back all the habits of their old affectionate
confidential intercourse, a subject upon which they could carry on
endless discussions and consultations, which was all their own, like one
of those innocent secrets which children delight in, and which, with
arms entwined and heads close together, they can carry o