'But what is it
makes the poor old thing so excited?'

Rose sat up and began to fling the fir cones lying about her at a
distant mark with an energy worthy of her physical perfections and the
aesthetic freedom of her attire.

'Because, my dear, Mrs. Thornburgh at the present moment is always
seeing herself as the conspirator sitting match in hand before a mine.
Mr. Elsmere is the match--we are the mine!'

Agnes looked at her sister, and they both laughed, the bright rippling
laugh of young women perfectly aware of their own value, and in no hurry
to force an estimate of it on the male world.

'Well,' said Rose deliberately, her delicate cheek flushed with her
gymnastics, her eyes sparkling, 'there is no saying. "Propinquity does
it"--as Mrs. Thornburgh is always reminding us.--But where _can_
Catherine be? She went out directly after lunch.'

'She has gone out to see that youth who hurt his back at the Tysons--at
least I heard her talking to mamma about him, and she went out with a
basket that looked like beef-tea.'

Rose frowned a little.

'And I suppose I ought to have been to the school or to see Mrs. Robson,
instead of fiddling all the afternoon. I daresay I ought--only,
unfortunately, I like my fiddle, and I don't like stuffy cottages; and
as for the goody books, I read them so badly that the old women
themselves come down upon me.'

'I seem to have been making the best of both worlds,' said Agnes
placidly. 'I haven't been doing anything I don't like, but I got hold
of that dress she brought home to make for little Emma Payne and nearly
finished the skirt, so that I feel as good as one when one has been
twice to church on a wet Sunday. Ah, there is Catherine. I heard the
gate.'

As she spoke steps were heard approaching through the clump of trees
which sheltered the little entrance gate, and as Rose sprang to her feet
a tall figure in white and gray appeared against the background of the
sycamores, and came quickly towards the sisters.

'Dears, I am so sorry; I am afraid you have been waiting for me. But
poor Mrs. Tyson wanted me so badly that I could not leave her. She had
no one else to help her or to be with her till that eldest girl of hers
came home from work.'

'It doesn't matter,' said Rose, as Catherine put her arm round her
shoulder; 'mamma hasn't been fidgeting, and as for Agnes, she looks as
if she never wanted to move again.'

Catherine's clear eyes, which at the moment seemed to be full