e anyone hear. I didn't like that. We are not Rip van Winkles,"
said Miss Ethel crisply.

Laura laughed, anxious to conciliate them both for Caroline's sake. "I
dare say she was afraid of disturbing you. She is a kind-hearted girl,
I am sure, and she would remember that you have been ill, Miss Ethel."

"And yet she declined to go on a simple errand for me this morning,"
said Miss Ethel. "No, they are all alike: all for self. The young
people of the present day think of nothing but their own amusement."

She paused and added, anxious to be just, "Though I must own that
Caroline was kind when I was ill. I dare say there is something
good-hearted about her, at the bottom: but it is her general attitude
which I so dislike."

"If we only had Ellen back!" moaned Mrs. Bradford from the depths of
the arm-chair. "Or somebody like Ellen."

"You may just as well wish for butter at fourteen-pence a pound or
oranges twelve a penny like we used to get in Flodmouth Market,"
retorted Miss Ethel. Then her voice changed, taking on a heavy, inward
note. "Those days are done. They'll never come back any more."

"I mean," said Mrs. Bradford, who had all the curiosity often shown by
stupid people, "what sort of a young man Caroline has got now. A great
deal depends on that." And she looked inquiringly at Laura.

"I'm sure I don't know," said Laura. "Caroline's young men are her
affair, not mine."

"At any rate," said Miss Ethel, "we have not brought you here on a busy
morning to talk about them. We know you must have a great deal on your
hands just now, preparing for the wedding."

"Oh, it makes a great difference, having no house to get ready," said
Laura, flushing at the mention of her wedding, as she could not help
doing, though she felt such a sign of emotion to be ridiculous at this
time of day. "We must stay in my cottage until the house Godfrey has
taken is at liberty, and they say that won't be before the end of March
at the earliest."

"I don't think I should have liked that," said Mrs. Bradford. "I
remember how my dear husband insisted on having everything absolutely
complete, down to the very toilet-tidies on the looking-glasses, before
he took me home as a bride. But there are few like him." And she
sighed and glanced up at the quite imposing photograph which she had
long since come to believe exactly resembled Mr. Bradford in life.

Laura felt a very little annoyed for the moment, being sensitive o