r younger
sisters, and to be loved by them so dearly! "Oh, I think she is to be
envied! her life must be so full of interest," she said, addressing
the astonished Archie, who had certainly never taken this view of it.
And when she had said this, she gave a slight signal to her sisters,
which they understood at once; and then they paced slowly down the
beach, with their faces towards the town, talking as they went.

They did not walk four abreast, as they used to do in the Oldfield
lanes; but Nan led the way with Mr. Drummond, and Phillis and Dulce
dropped behind.

Archie was a little silent; but presently he said, quite frankly, as
though he had known her for years,--but from the first moment he had
felt strangely at home with these girls,--

"Do you know, you have thrown a fresh light on a vexed subject? I have
been worrying myself dreadfully about Grace. I wanted her to live with
me because there was more sympathy between us than there ever will be
between my sister Mattie and myself. We have more in common, and think
the same on so many subjects; and I knew how happy I could have made
her."

"Yes, I see," returned Nan; and she looked up at him in such an
interested way that he found no difficulty in going on:

"We had planned for years to live together; but when I accepted the
living, and the question was mooted in the family council, my mother
would not hear of it for a moment. She said Grace could not possibly
be spared."

"Well, I suppose not, after what you have told me. But it must have
been a great disappointment to you both," was Nan's judicious reply.

"I have never ceased to regret my mother's decision," he returned,
warmly; "and as for Grace, I fear she has taken the disappointment
grievously to heart."

"Oh, I hope not!"

"Isabel writes to my sister Mattie that Grace is looking thin and pale
and has lost her appetite, and she thinks the mother is getting uneasy
about her; and I cannot help worrying myself about it, and thinking
how all this might have been averted."

"I think you are wrong in that," was the unexpected answer. "When one
has acted rightly to the very best of one's power, it is of no use
worrying about consequences."

"How do you mean?" asked Archie, very much surprised at the decided
tone in which Nan spoke. He had thought her too soft in manners to
possess much energy and determination of character; but he was
mistaken.

"It would be far worse if your sister had not recogni