hether
she'd come or not. It made me dreadfully nervous, and that's the reason
I was so cross to you, Joyce, I suppose. Will you forgive me, now that
you know?"

"Why, of course!" said Joyce. Then, suddenly, "But, oh!-- I _wish_ I'd
known this all at the time!"

"What for? What difference would it have made?" demanded Cynthia.

But Joyce only replied: "Hush! Is that Mrs. Collingwood coming down?"

CHAPTER XV

THE STRANGER AT THE DOOR

Mrs. Collingwood remained a long time up-stairs,--so long, indeed, that
the girls began to be rather uneasy, fearing that she had fainted, or
perhaps was ill, or overcome--they knew not what.

"Do you think we ought to go up?" asked Cynthia, anxiously. "Perhaps she
needs help."

"No, I think she just wants to be by herself. It was fine of you,
Cynthia, to send her up alone! I really don't believe I'd have thought
of it."

At length they heard her coming slowly down, and presently she reentered
the drawing-room. They could see that she was much moved, and had
evidently been crying. She did not speak to them at once, but went and
stood by the mantel, looking up long and earnestly at the portrait of
the twins.

"My babies!" they heard her murmur unconsciously, aloud. At last,
however, she came to them, and sat down once more between them on the
sofa. They wondered nervously what she was going to say.

"My little girls--" she began, "forgive me!--you seem little and young
to me, though. I suppose you consider yourselves almost young ladies;
but you see, I am an old woman!-- I was going to tell you a little about
my life, but I suppose you already know most of the important things,
thanks to Great-aunt Lucia!" She patted Joyce's hand.

"There are some things, however, that perhaps you do not know, and,
after what you have done for me, you deserve to. I was married when I
was a very young girl--only seventeen. I was a Southerner, but my
husband came from the North, and brought me up North here to live. I
always hated it--this Northern life--and, though I loved my husband
dearly, I hated his devotion to it. We never agreed about those
questions. When my twin babies were born, I secretly determined that
they should be Southerners, in spirit, and _only_ Southerners. I planned
that when they were both old enough, they should marry in the South and
live there--and my husband and I with them.

"But, in this life, things seldom turn out as we plan. My little girl
died before s