like an exquisite bit of porcelain, she was so
fine and dainty, with soft white hair curling around her gentle and
melancholy face. Mrs. Forsythe dressed in delicate grays and lavenders,
and her fingers were covered with rings, and generally held some filmy
fancy-work. Her invalidism had only given her an air of interesting
fragility, which made Lois long to put her strong young arms about her,
to shield her lest any wind might blow too roughly upon her.

Mrs. Forsythe accepted her devotion with complacency. She had never had
this adoring tenderness from her son, who had heard her remark that she
was at the gates of death too often to live in a state of anxiety; but
to Lois her gentle resignation and heavenly anticipations were most
impressive. The girl's affection almost reconciled the elder lady to
having been made to come to Ashurst while the snow still lingered in
sheltered spots, and before the crocuses had lighted their golden censers
in her garden; for Lois went to see her every day, and though she could
not always escape without a meaning look from the invalid, or a sigh for
Dick's future, she thoroughly enjoyed her visits. It was charming to sit
in the dusk, before the dancing flames of an apple-wood fire, the air
fragrant with the hyacinths and jonquils of the window garden, and listen
to tales of Mrs. Forsythe's youth.

Lois had never heard such stories. Mrs. Dale would have said it was not
proper for young girls to know of love affairs, and it is presumable that
the Misses Woodhouse never had any to relate; so this was Lois's first
and only chance, and she would sit, clasping her knees with her hands,
listening with wide, frank eyes, and cheeks flushed by the fire and the
tale.

"But then, my poor health," Mrs. Forsythe ended with a sigh, one evening,
just before it was time for Lois to go; "of course it interfered very
much."

"Why, were you ill _then_," Lois said, "when you used to dance all
night?"

"Oh, dear me, yes," answered the other shaking her head, "I have been a
sufferer all my life, a great sufferer. Well, it cannot last much longer;
this poor body is almost worn out."

"Oh, _don't_ say it!" Lois cried, and kissed the white soft hand with its
shining rings, in all the tenderness of her young heart.

All this endeared the girl very much, and more than once Mrs. Forsythe
wrote of her sweetness and goodness to her son. Miss Deborah, or Miss
Ruth, or even Mrs. Dale, would have been careful i