nded and welcomed most cordially.

Phillis looked at her curiously for a moment: indeed, during the whole
visit her eyes rested upon Grace's face from time to time, as though
she were studying her. She had heard so much of this girl that she had
almost feared to be disappointed in her; but every moment her interest
increased.

Grace Drummond was not a pretty girl,--with the exception of Isabel
and the boys, the Drummond family had not the slightest pretension to
beauty,--but she was fair and tranquil-looking, and her expression was
gentle and full of character. She had very soft clear eyes, with a
trace of sadness in them; but her lips were thin--like her
mother's--and closed firmly, and the chin was a little massively cut
for a woman.

In looking at the lower part of this girl's face, a keen observer
would read the tenacity of a strong will; but the eyes had the
appealing softness that one sees in some dumb creatures.

They won Phillis at once. After the first moment, her reserved manner
thawed and became gracious; and before half an hour had passed she and
Grace were talking as though they had known each other all their
lives.

Nan watched them smilingly as she chatted with Mattie: she knew her
sister was fastidious in her likings, and that she did not take to
people easily. Phillis was pleasant to all her friends and
acquaintances: but she was rarely intimate with them, as Nan and Dulce
were wont to be. She held her head a little high, as though she felt
her own superiority.

"Phillis is very amusing and clever; but one does not know her as well
as Nan and Dulce," even Carrie Paine had been heard to say; and
certainly Phillis had never talked to Carrie as she did to this
stranger.

Grace was just as must charmed on her side. On her return, she
delighted and yet pained her brother by her warm praises of his
favorites.

"Oh, Archie!" she exclaimed, as they sat at luncheon in the old
wainscoted dining-room at the vicarage, "you are quite right in saying
the Challoners are not like any other girls. They are all three so
nice and pretty; but the second one--Miss Phillis--is most to my
taste."

Archie checked an involuntary exclamation, but Mattie covered it.

"Dear me, Grace!" she observed, innocently; "I rather wonder at your
saying that. Nan is by far the prettiest: is she not, Archie? Her
complexion and coloring are perfect."

"Oh, yes! If you are talking of mere looks, I cannot dispute that,"
returned