at does that pretty creature do but come and sit by me, and begin to
coax me. 'She wanted me so much, and it would be so kind if I would but
stop and do as I always had done, and she would be so careful to please
me, and she had always thought the house was so beautifully managed, and
everything in such order, and so regular.'"

"So it is," Valentine put in. "She is quite right there."

"'And she didn't know how to order the dinner,' she said; and so she
went on, till I said, 'Well, my dears, I don't wish that there should be
any mistake about this for want of a little plain speaking.'"

"Well?" said John, when she came to a dead stop.

"And she said, 'You love St. George, don't you, just as much as if he
was related to you?' 'How can any one help loving him?' 'And I know if
you leave us he won't be half so comfortable. And nobody should ever
interfere with you,' So I said I would keep their house for them, and
you may suppose how glad I was to say it, for I'm like a cat, exactly
like a cat--I don't like to leave a place that I am used to, and it
would have been difficult for her to manage."

"Yes, very."

"I had often been thinking, when I supposed I had to go, that she would
never remember to see that the table-linen was all used in its proper
turn, and to have the winter curtains changed for white ones before the
sun faded them."

"You're such a comfortable, dear thing to live with," observed
Valentine, now the narrative was over. "Everybody likes you, you know."

Mrs. Henfrey smiled complacently, accepting the compliment. She was, to
all strangers, an absolutely uninteresting woman; but her family knew
her merits, and Giles and Valentine were both particularly alive to
them.

"And so here I am," continued 'sister,' "but it is a pity for poor
Emily, for she wanted me to live in that house, you know, John, with
her."

"But I thought old Walker was devoted to her," said John.

"So he was, my dear, so long as her boy was with her; but now she is
nobody, and I am told he shows a willingness to let her go, which is
almost like dismissing her."

"I hope she will not get my old woman away to live with her," thought
John, with a sudden start. "I don't know what I may be driven to, if she
does. I shall have to turn out of my own house, or take the Golden Head
into it by way of protection. No, not that! I'll play the man. But," he
thought, continuing his cogitations, "Emily is too young and attractive
to live al