f Archie's
strictures, decidedly pretty. "Do let me bring you something. Mother
will not know."

But Grace refused: she could not eat, and the sight of food would
distress her.

"Why not go to bed at once, then?" suggested Isabel,--which was
certainly sensible counsel. But Grace demurred to this; she knew
Archie would be up presently to say good-night to her: so, when Isabel
had gone, she lighted the candle, shading it carefully from Dottie's
eyes, and then she bathed her hot face, and smoothed her hair, and
took up her work again.

Archie found her quite calm and busy, but he was not so easily
deceived.

"Now, Gracie, you have got one of your headaches: it is the
disappointment and the bother, and my going away to-morrow. Poor
little Gracie!"

"Oh, Archie, I feel as though I shall never miss you so much!"
exclaimed the poor girl, throwing down her work and clinging to him.
"When shall I see your dear face again?--not until Christmas?"

"And not then, I expect. I shall most likely run down some time in
January, and then I shall try hard to take you back with me, just for
a visit. Mattie will be dull, and wanting to see some of you, and I
will not have one of the others until you have been."

"I don't believe mother will spare me even for that," returned Grace,
with a sudden conviction that her mother's memory was retentive, and
that she would be punished in that way for her sins of this evening;
"but promise me, Archie, that you will come, if it be only for a few
days."

"Oh, I will promise you that. I cannot last longer without seeing you,
Grace!" And he stroked her soft hair as she still clung to him.

The next day Archibald bade his family good-bye: his manner had not
changed toward his mother, and Mrs. Drummond thought his kiss
decidedly cold.

"You will be good to Mattie, and try to make the poor girl happy; you
will do at least as much as this," she said, detaining him as he was
turning from her to see Grace.

"Oh, yes, I will be good to her," he returned, indifferently, "but I
cannot promise that she will not find her life dull." And then he took
Grace in his arms, and whispered to her to be patient, and that all
would be well one day; and Mrs. Drummond, though she did not hear the
whisper, saw the embrace and the long lingering look between the
brother and sister, and pressed her thin lips together and went back
to her parlor and mending-basket, feeling herself an unhappy mother,
whose love was