uld,
while Tracy ushered me into a bright snug-looking room and asked me very
civilly what she could do for me.

Tracy was a handy, sensible woman, and in a few minutes I had managed,
with her help, to strap up poor Flossie's leg in the most successful
manner.

'I am sure, ma'am, Mr. Hamilton couldn't have done better himself,'
observed Tracy, looking at me with respectful admiration, while I petted
Flossie, who was now lying comfortably in her basket, trying to lick her
bandages. 'I must go and tell my mistress that it is done, for she will
be fretting herself ill over poor Flossie.'

I expect Tracy sounded my praises, for when Mrs. Maberley entered the
room in her pretty cap with gray ribbons there was not a trace of
formality in her manner as she thanked me with tears in her eyes for
my kindness to Flossie.

'To think of a young creature being so clever!' she said, folding her
soft dimpled hands together. 'My dear, the colonel will be so grateful to
you: he dotes on Flossie. You must stay and have tea with me, and then he
can thank you himself. No, I shall take no refusal. Tracy, tell Marvel to
bring up the tea-tray at once. My dear,' turning to me, when Tracy had
left the room, 'I am almost ashamed to look you in the face when I
remember how long you have been in Heathfield and that I have never
called on you; but Etta told me that you did not care to have visitors.'

'Yes, I know, Mrs. Maberley; but that is quite a mistake,' I returned,
somewhat eagerly, for I had fallen in love with the pretty old lady, and
her tall, aristocratic colonel with his white moustache and grand
military carriage, and had watched them with much interest from my place
in church. She was such a dainty old lady, like a piece of Dresden china,
with her pink cheeks and white curls and old-fashioned shoe-buckles; and
she had such beautiful little hands, plump and soft as a baby's, which
she seemed to regard with innocent pride, for she was always settling the
lace ruffles round her wrists and pinching them up with careful fingers.

'Dear, dear! I thought Etta told me,' she began rather nervously.

'Miss Darrell makes mistakes, like other people,' I answered, smiling.
'I shall be very pleased to know my neighbours; it is quite true that I
am not often at home, and just now I am very busy, but all the same I do
not mean to shut myself out from society. One owes a duty to one's
neighbours.'

'My dear Miss Garston, I am quite pleased to h