hillis went down to the White House to say good-bye.
It was one of Magdalene's bad days; but the unquiet hour had passed,
and left her, as usual, weak and subdued. Her husband was sitting
beside her: as Phillis entered he rose with a smile on his lips. "That
is right, Miss Challoner!" he said, heartily. "Magdalene always looks
better the moment she hears your voice. Barby is unfortunately out,
but I can leave her happily with you."

"Is he not good?" exclaimed his wife, as soon as he had left them. "He
has been sitting with me all the afternoon, my poor Herbert, trying to
curb his restlessness, because he knows how much worse I am without
him. Am I not a trying wife to him? and yet he says he could not do
without me. There, it has passed: let us talk of something else. And
so you are going to leave us?" drawing the fresh face down to hers,
that she might kiss it again.

"Yes, to-morrow!" trying to stifle a sigh.

"There are some of us that will not know what to do without you. If I
am not very much mistaken, there is one person who----" but here the
girl laid her hand hurriedly on her lips. "What! I am not to say that?
Well, I will try to be good. But all the same this is not good-bye.
Tell your mother from me that she will not have her girls for long.
Captain Middleton has lost his heart, and is bent on making that
pretty little sister of yours lose hers to; and as for you,
Phillis----" but here Phillis stooped, and silenced her this time by a
kiss.

"Ah, well!" continued Magdalene, after a moment's silence, as she
looked tenderly into the fair face before her; "so you have finished
your little bit of play-work, and are going back into your
young-ladyhood again?"

"It was not play-work!" returned Phillis, indignantly: "you say that
to provoke me. Do you know," she went on, earnestly, "that if we
should have had to work all our lives as dressmakers, Nan and I would
have done it, and never given in. We were making quite a fine business
of it. We had more orders then we could execute; and you call that
play? Confess, now, that you repent of that phrase!"

"Oh, I was only teasing you," returned Magdalene, smiling. "I know how
brave you were, and how terribly in earnest. Yes, Phillis, you are
right; nothing would have daunted you; you would have worked without
complaint all your life long, but for that red-haired Alcides of
yours."

"Dear Harry! how much we owe to him!" exclaimed Phillis.

"No, dear, you will owe