g for my return; but it was less of Phoebe than of Susan
I was thinking. I was so absorbed in my reflections that Uncle Max's
voice outside quite startled me.

'May I come in, Ursula?' he said, thrusting in his head. 'I have been
at the choir-practice, so I thought I would call as I passed.'

Of course I gave him a warm welcome, and he drew his chair to the
opposite side of the fire, and declared he felt very comfortable: then
he asked me why I was looking grave, and if I were tired of my solitude.
I disclaimed this indignantly, and gave him a sketch of my day's work,
ending with my talk to Susan Locke.

He seemed interested, and listened attentively.

'It is such a sad case, Max,--poor Phoebe's, I mean,--but I am almost
as sorry for her sister. Susan Locke is such a good woman.'

'You would say so if you knew all, Ursula, but Miss Locke would never
tell you herself. When Phoebe's illness came on, and Hamilton told them
that she might not get well for a year or two, or perhaps longer, Susan
broke off her own engagement to stay with her sister. Her father was just
dead, and the child Kitty had to live with them.'

'Miss Locke engaged!' I exclaimed, in some surprise, for it had never
struck me that the homely middle-aged woman had this sort of experience
in her life.

Max looked amused.

'In that class they do not always choose youth and beauty. Certainly
Susan Locke was neither young nor handsome, but she was a neat-looking
body, only she has aged of late. Do you want to know all about it? Well,
she was engaged to a man named Duncan: he was a widower with three or
four children; he had the all-sorts shop down the village, only he moved
last year. He was a respectable man and had a comfortable little
business, and I daresay he thought Miss Locke would make a good mother to
his children. She told me all about it, poor thing! She would have liked
to marry Duncan; she was fond of him, and thought he would have made her
a steady husband; but with Phoebe on her hands she could not do her duty
to him or the children.

'"And there is Kitty; and he has enough of his own; and a sickly body
like Phoebe would hinder the comfort of the house, and I have promised
mother to take care of her." And then she asked my opinion. Well, I could
not but own that with the shop and the house to mind, and five children,
counting Kitty, and a bedridden invalid, her hands would be over-weighted
with work and worry.

'"I think so too," sh