your duties, and got five minutes' leisure for
once? Come along, and have a walk with me. I never met such a girl for
being busy all day long. Don't think I have ever seen you sitting with
idle hands. You remember Jim's old nickname, `Maud of all work'? A
capital title! But he would have missed it badly if he had not had you
to wait upon him. I used to tell him I envied him such a sister!"

Maud smiled vaguely and turned her head aside. It was all very kind,
very flattering, very friendly, yet somehow it failed to satisfy; and
even as she listened the old ache of uncertainty came back to her heart.
It was difficult to say why, unless perhaps it was that Ned's manner
was a little too friendly to be welcome. In the old days he had not
been so much at his ease; they had talked merrily enough together while
the others were present, but so soon as they had been left alone a
constraint had been wont to fall upon them,--a silence, awkward,
embarrassing, yet in some inexplicable way more eloquent than words.
Maud thought of the past with a quick catching of breath, and through
the whole of that afternoon and evening the vague depression deepened,
and refused to be argued away. Ned, it was true, took advantage of
every opportunity of being near her, yet the time had been when he had
seemed shy of approaching; and she preferred the shyness to this open
friendliness. He talked to her more than to any one of her sisters,
yes! in frank, cheery words with unlowered voice, as a brother might
talk to a sister, or a son to his mother. He looked at her with kindly
affection, and the look chilled her heart. Once again Maud passed a
sleepless night, but the darkness was no longer illumined by rosy
dreams, but black with fear and dread.

Sunday was a glorious day, and Maud felt it another drop in her cup to
be obliged to wear winter clothes instead of blossoming out in the
pretty spring costume which she had hoped to possess. The dressmaker
had proved faithless, like the rest of her kind, and, being unable to
finish two dresses by the promised time, had followed her usual custom
and sent home the one destined for the younger sister; for, in spite of
her gentle manners, Lilias had "a way with her" which carried infinitely
more weight than Maud's good-natured placidity.

The sisters were standing in the hall providing themselves with hymn-
books from the pile laid out on the top of the oak bench, when Lilias
came tripping down