he could spare to come and receive us."

"Perhaps it is just as well," answered Justina; "I should have felt very
awkward going about his house and garden in his absence."

"Justina," said Emily, driven at last to front the question, "how much
do you wish me to understand?"

"Nothing at all, dear, but what you see," she replied, without lifting
her head from her work; then she added, "Do those children come here
often?"

"Two or three times a week, I think," answered Emily, with a degree of
carelessness that attracted Miss Fairbairn's attention. She had appeared
more than commonly indifferent that morning, she had hardly responded to
the loving caresses of John's children, but this had seemed to signify
nothing, they came and hung about her just the same.

"They had taken those gardens some time before I found it out," she
continued. "They run through the copses and through those three or four
fields that belong to John, and get into my garden over the
stepping-stones in the brook."

"They must feel very sure of their welcome," said Justina, rather
pointedly.

"Yes," answered Emily, also rather pointedly; "but I have never invited
them to come, never once; there is, as you see, no occasion."

Holding her graceful head a little higher than usual, she folded up her
now finished shawl, ran up-stairs with it to Miss Christie's room, and
was conscious almost at once (or she fancied so) that her old aunt
looked at her with a certain air of scrutiny, not unmixed with
amusement. She was relieved when she had put on her gift to hear Miss
Christie say, "Well, ye'll be glad to know that I feel more at my ease
now than I've done for some time."

There had been such an air of triumph in Miss Christie's glance that
Emily was pleased to find she was only exultant on account of her
health. She expressed her gladness, and assured the old lady she would
soon be as active as ever.

"It's no my foot I'm thinking of," answered Miss Christie, "but some bad
advice that weighed on my mind--bad advice that I've given to John
Mortimer." Thereupon she related the conversation in which she had
recommended Miss Fairbairn to him.

Emily sat very still--so still, that she hardly seemed to breathe, then,
looking up, she said, perhaps rather more calmly and quietly than was
her wont--

"Several people have thought it would be a good thing for John to marry
Justina Fairbairn."

"And I was one of them," quoth Miss Christie, her eyes spa