f she could! Had she been the man and he
the woman--nay, had she been still herself, a poor lonely governess,
having to earn every crumb of her own bitter bread, yet knowing that he
loved her, might not things have been different? Had she belonged to
him, they would never have lost one another. She would have sought him,
as Evangeline sought Gabriel, half the world over.

And little did her two girls imagine, as they called her down stairs that
night, secretly wondering what important business could make "Auntie"
keep tea waiting fully five minutes, and set her after tea to read some
"pretty poetry," especially Longfellow's, which they had a fancy
for--little did they think, those two happy creatures, listening to their
middle-aged governess, who read so well that sometimes her voice actually
faltered over the line, how there was being transacted under their very
eyes a story which in its "constant anguish of patience" was scarcely
less pathetic than that of Acadia.

For nearly a year after that letter came the little family of which Miss
Williams was the head went on in its innocent quiet way, always planning,
yet never making a change, until at last fate drove them to it.

Neither Helen nor Janetta were very healthy girls, and at last a London
doctor gave as his absolute fiat that they must cease to live in their
warm inland village, and migrate, for some years at any rate, to a
bracing sea-side place.

Whereupon David Dalziel, who had somehow established himself as the one
masculine adviser of the family, suggested St. Andrews. Bracing enough
it was, at any rate: he remembered the winds used almost cut his nose
off. And it was such a nice place too, so pretty, with such excellent
society. He was sure the young ladies would find it delightful. Did
Miss Williams remember the walk by the shore, and the golfing across the
Links?

"Quite as well as you could have done, at the early age of seven," she
suggested, smiling. "Why are you so very anxious we should go to live at
St. Andrews?"

The young fellow blushed all over his kindly eager face, and then frankly
owned he had a motive. His grandmother's cottage, which she had left
him, the youngest and her pet always, was now unlet. He meant, perhaps,
to go and live at it himself when--he was of age and could afford it; but
in the mean time he was a poor solitary bachelor, and--and--

"And you would like me to keep your nest warm for you till you can claim