"Wouldn't it be fine!" said Miss Elizabeth, rousing herself. "Some day we'll go--you and I together, Katie. We'll cross the sea, and wander through the countries that we read about in books, and among the great cities that have stood for hundreds and hundreds of years. Wouldn't you like to see Scotland, Katie, and the heather hills that grannie tells us about; and the great castles that they used to hold against all comers in the old times, and the parks, and the deer, and the gardens full of wonderful flowers, and the lakes and the mountains--only we can see lakes and mountains at home."

"And the moors and glens where they worshipped in the dark days."

And so they went on in turn, telling what they would like to see--they were going slowly now--till they came to the bridge again.

"I like to think about it, but it could never be," said Katie gravely.

"And why not? It might very easily be, I think."

"But it could never be for me, until--the saddest things had happened.

I could never leave my grandfather and my grandmother, and all the rest; only the rest might live till I came back again; but grannie--and him--"

"Yes, Katie, and it is as true for me as for you. Our work is here, and our happiness too; and, after all, we have fallen into sad thoughts again. But we are nearly home now."

"There was no light in the minister's study to-night," said Katie, as they went slowly up the hill. "Nor in the dining-room either. He must be away from home."

Elizabeth had noticed the darkened window, but she did not say so.

Indeed she said nothing. She was thinking: "Perhaps he went in to see my father, knowing I was away."

And so he had, for when they went into the hall they heard his voice, indeed several voices in the sitting-room. But they went first up-stairs to take off their wraps in Miss Elizabeth's room, and came down just in time to find the tea-table ready, and the company waiting for them. There was coffee on the table too, for Mr Burnet was there, and Sally knew his tastes.

"There! You feel better, don't you?" said Miss Betsey, who was the first to notice their entrance. "You look better, anyway."

"Like two roses," said Mr Burnet.

Elizabeth laughed and thanked him, and then shook hands with Mr Maxwell.

"I hope you have had a good time, daughter. I have," said the squire.

"Yes. I see you have had company."

"Yes, Betsey is always good company. Mr Maxwell came when he saw you pa.s.s down the street. He didn't know Betsey was here, and he thought I might be lonesome."

"It was very kind," said Elizabeth.

All the rest sat down, but Mr Maxwell continued standing. The squire would not listen to him, when he said that doubtless his tea would be waiting for him at home, but urged him almost petulantly to remain.

"Lizzie, why don't you ask the minister to stay?"

For Elizabeth was listening to something that Mr Burnet was saying to Katie, but she turned round when her father spoke to her.

"We haven't Mr Burnet and Cousin Betsey here very often, Mr Maxwell.

You might stay to-night for their sakes."

So he stayed, and the squire had a good time still, and so had all the rest, it seemed, for they were in no haste to leave the table till Sally came to take the things away. When she came in again it was to say that "Ben had been waiting for his Aunt Betsey for the biggest part of an hour, and it was getting on for nine o'clock." Even then Miss Betsey seemed in no hurry to go, but when she went, Mr Burnet went also, and Elizabeth went out of the room with her cousin, and did not come back for what seemed to Katie a long time. Her father was tired and she went out with him afterward. Mr Maxwell talked with Katie a while, about her mother and her grandparents, about Davie and his bees, and the work that had occupied him all the winter, and then he sat for a long time looking into the fire in silence. When Miss Elizabeth came in again he rose to go away.

"It is not very late," said she.

"No--and it is very pleasant here," said the minister, and he sat down again.

Miss Elizabeth took her work, and they were all silent for a while, and in the silence a sudden sense of embarra.s.sment and discomfort seized Katie Fleming. She had a book in her hand, but she was not sure whether she ought to read or not. She would have liked to go with it to the side-table, where Miss Elizabeth had carried the lamp before she sat down, or even out into the kitchen to see Sally for a while.

"Are you deep in your story already? Well, take your book to the lamp, if you like, for a little while," said Miss Elizabeth, just as if she had known her thoughts.

But Katie would not have liked her to know her thoughts. She was glad to go to the lamp, but she did not care for her story. She was thinking of something else, of a single word she had heard one day, which put together significantly the names of the minister and her friend. She had been indignant at first. "They were just friends," she had said to herself. Afterward she could not help giving them a good many of her thoughts, and she was not sure about it. As she sat with the book on the table before her, shading her eyes with her hands, she felt a little guilty and greatly interested, for the story before her was better than any story in a book.

Perhaps she ought to go away, she thought again. It was not right to listen, and she could not help listening. But indeed there was nothing said which all the world might not hear. Mrs Varney had burned her hand. Old Mrs Lawrence was sick, and Miss Elizabeth promised to go and see her. Then Mr Maxwell told her about a meeting he had attended in Fairfax, and about another that he meant to attend, and so on.

"It might be grannie and he," said Katie, with a little impatient wonder. "Only grannie would say it all a great deal better, and not just 'yes' and 'no,' and 'I hope so indeed,' like Miss Elizabeth. What has come to her, I wonder? Mrs Stacy's rheumatism, and the mothers'

meeting at North Gore. That is not how people talk, surely--when-- when--"

Suddenly looking up she met Miss Elizabeth's eye, and reddened, and hung her head. Then she rose as Miss Elizabeth beckoned to her, and came to the fireside again, still holding her book in her hand.

After that Miss Elizabeth took a letter which she had that day received from her brother Clifton, and read bits of it aloud. It was a very amusing letter, she seemed to think, and so did the minister, but Katie did not understand all the allusions in it, and missed the point. And besides, Clifton Holt was not a favourite with her. She was a little scornful of a lad who seemed to care so little for the opportunities he had, and who did so little good work with them. He was idle, she thought, and conceited, and she could not but wonder at Miss Elizabeth's delight in him, and listened with some impatience to the discussion of him and his affairs that followed the reading of the letter.

"To be sure he is her brother, and she must make the best of him," said Katie.

By and by Mr Maxwell rose to go away, and Miss Elizabeth bade him good-night in the sitting-room, and did not go with him to the hall, as was her way usually with visitors who were going away. Then she said she had to see Sally about something, and was so long away that Katie had time to get fairly into her story, and so she read on after she came in again, and it was a good while before she noticed that her friend was gazing with a strange, fixed look into the embers, and that her roses had paled sadly since Mr Burnet had praised them when they first came in. But she smiled brightly enough when she turned and met Katie's wistful look.

"Well! How do you like it, Katie? But we must do something besides reading to-morrow, dear, or grannie will not be pleased."

And then she went on to tell of some pretty fancy-work that they were to learn together, and was so full of it, and of all they were to do the next three days, that Katie forgot her grave looks for that night. As the days went on, and she saw how feeble Mr Holt had become, she did not wonder at her sadness, and it did not come into Katie's mind that there could be any other cause for her sadness and her grave looks than her father's illness gave.

"Except, perhaps, her brother may not be doing so well as he ought. And that is enough of itself to make her sad," said Katie. "For what should I do if it were our Davie?"

Katie had a pleasant visit in many ways. The leisure was delightful to her. They had a drive every day. Sometimes Mr Holt went with them, and then they had the large sleigh and a pair of horses, and sometimes Katie laughed, and made Miss Elizabeth laugh too, pretending that she was a rich lady riding in her own sleigh, and taking her friends for a drive. But she liked it best when Miss Elizabeth drove her own horse Lion, and they went alone together. It seemed to Katie that the talks they had at such times, in the keen, clear winter air, were different from the talks they sometimes fell into sitting by the fireside, when all the rest had gone to bed and they had the home to themselves. Under the bright sunshine they seemed to get away from Gershom and its news and its troubles and vexations, into a wider and brighter world, and some of the things that Miss Elizabeth said to her then, Katie told herself she would never forget while she lived.

There were visitors now and then, and at such times, if they were strangers to her, Katie took her book into a corner, or into Sally's bright kitchen, and read it there; but if the visitors were her friends as well, she stayed and enjoyed their visits also. Just one thing happened that it was not pleasant to think about afterward. Indeed it had been very unpleasant at the time, and Katie had some trouble in deciding whether or not she should say anything about it to grannie and her mother when she went home.

This was a visit made one day to Elizabeth by Mrs Jacob Holt. Katie did not go away this time, because she was afraid it might not please her friend, but she did not join in the conversation. She sat beyond the flower-stand in the bay-window, reading and knitting; but she was not so interested in her book as not to hear something of what was said.

Mrs Jacob told some village news, and then spoke about Clifton, and about a new dress that was to be finished for her to-day, and much more of the same kind.

It was not Mrs Jacob's fault that the conversation took the turn it did. It was the squire, who questioned her about Jacob, and about various matters connected with their business; and then he said something about Silas Bean, who had got hurt in his employment, and the difficulty was to make him understand what Silas Bean should be doing at the Varney place with two yoke of oxen, and what Jacob had to do with it. Elizabeth reminded him that Jacob had bought the Varney place, and that Mark Varney had gone away, and tried to end the discussion of the matter. But Mrs Jacob went still on to remind him of the Gershom Manufacturing Company, that would no doubt be formed by and by, and how Jacob hated to have time lost, and was taking advantage of the snow to have stones and timber drawn that would be needed in the building of the new dam; and that was the way that Silas Bean came to be there with his oxen.

"And the company will take the timber off his hands, I suppose," said she. "Only it's likely Jacob will be pretty much the company himself-- at least he will have most to say in it. He most generally does."

"But it seems to me that Jacob should not have undertaken so much without consulting me," said the squire, with some excitement. "It seems to me he's going ahead pretty fast, isn't he?"

"Oh! he's told you all about it, I expect. You've forgotten. Your memory isn't what it once was, you know."

But the squire was inclined to resent the idea that he could have forgotten a matter of such importance, and though Mrs Jacob a.s.sured him that his son had gone away for the day to Fosbrooke, it was all that his daughter could do to prevent him from going in search of him. She almost regretted not permitting him to go, however, for he would not leave the subject, and insisted on Mrs Jacob telling him all about the matter. She, with less sense and more malice than Elizabeth could have supposed possible, went on to tell of what was to be done, and went over the old grievance as to Mr Fleming's obstinacy in refusing to come to terms for a piece of land which was the best for the mill-site, and good for very little else, "just to spite Jacob."

"We won't talk about that," said the squire, seeming to forget the first cause of grievance. "Jacob knows my mind about that matter. And it is doubtful whether the company they talk about will ever amount to much-- at least for a time."

"Well, it isn't for me to say. But I must go. They'll think at home that I am lost," and as she rose and pushed away her chair, she added in a voice that the squire could not hear, "It is not for me to say much about it. But Jacob generally does get things fixed pretty much to his mind, and I guess he sees his way clear to get this as well. Of course it will be just as much for Mr Fleming's benefit as for the rest of the town, and his land will be paid for, he needn't fear that."

At the first mention of her grandfather's name, Katie had risen, and she was standing with burning cheeks and shining eyes when Mrs Jacob turned toward her to say good-bye.

"I hope you'll come and make me a visit before you go home. If Lizzie can spare you I shall be pleased to have you come any day--say to-morrow. Will you come?"