you?"

"Not to be turned out of doors, no," Adah answered; "but I--I--I want
that place so much. I read Miss Anna's advertisement; but please turn
back, or let me get out and walk. I can't go there now. Is Miss Anna
like the rest?"

"Miss Anna's an angel," he answered. "If you get her ear, you're all
right; the plague is to get it with them two she-cats ready to tear your
eyes out. If I'se you, I'd ask to see her. I wouldn't tell my arrent
either, till I did. She's sick upstairs; but I'll see if Pamely can't
manage it. That's my woman--Pamely; been mine for four years, and we've
had two pair of twins, all dead; so I feel tender toward the little
ones," and Jim glanced kindly at Willie, who had succeeded in making
Adah notice the house standing out so prominently against the winter
sky, and looking to the poor woman-girl more like a prison than a home.

It might be pleasant there in the summer, Adah thought; but now, with
snow on the roof, snow on the walk, snow on the trees, snow everywhere,
it presented a cheerless aspect. Only one part of it seemed
inviting--the two crimson-curtained windows opening upon a veranda, from
which a flight of steps led down into what must be a flower garden.

"Miss Anna's room," the driver said, pointing toward it; and Adah looked
wistfully out, vainly hoping for a glimpse of the sweet face she had in
her mind as Anna's.

But only Asenath's grim, angular visage was seen, as it looked from
Anna's window, wondering whom Jim could be bringing home.

"It's a handsome trunk--covered, too. Can it be Lottie?" and mentally
hoping it was not, she busied herself again with bathing poor Anna's
head, which was aching sadly to-day, owing to the excitement of her
brother's visit and the harsh words which passed between him and his
sisters, he telling them, jokingly at first, that he was tired of
getting married, and half resolved to give it up; while they, in return,
had abused him for fickleness, taunted him with their poverty, and
sharply reproached him for his unwillingness to lighten their burden, by
taking a rich wife when he could get one.

All this John had repeated to Anna in the dim twilight of the morning,
as he stood by her bedside to bid her good-by; and she, as usual, had
soothed him into quiet, speaking kindly of his bride-elect, and saying
she should like her.

He had not told her all of Lily's story, as he meant to do. There was no
necessity for that, for the matter was fixed. '