loved
gaiety, never accompanied him, but now and then Jill would creep from her
corner, when her mother was not looking, and slip behind the ruby
curtains. I have caught her there sometimes sitting on the rug, with her
rough head against her father's knee; they would both of them look a
little shamefaced, as if they were guilty of some fault.

'Go to bed, Jill; it is time for little girls to be asleep,' he would
say, patting her cheek. Jill would nestle it on his coat-sleeve for a
moment, as she obeyed him. Her father had the softest place in her heart.
She always would have it that her mother was hard on her, but she never
complained of want of kindness from her father.

'Colonel Ferguson comes very often,' remarked Lesbia, a little peevishly,
as she walked to the fireplace to warm herself: she was a chilly being,
and loved warmth. 'His name is Donald, is it not? some one told me so:
Donald Ferguson. Well, he is not bad; he may do for Sara. She has plenty
of quicksilver to balance his gravity.'

I was rather surprised at this beginning; but without waiting for any
answer, she went on.

'What is this Mr. Cunliffe tells me?' she asked, fixing her blue eyes
on my face with marked interest. 'You are going to carry out your old
scheme, Ursula, about nursing poor people and singing to them. He tells
me you have chosen Heathfield for your future home, and that he is to
find you lodgings. Sit down, dear, and tell me all about it,' she went on
eagerly. 'I thought you had given up all that when--when--' but here she
stopped and her lips trembled; of course she meant when Charlie died, but
she rarely spoke his name. I would not let her see my astonishment,--she
had never seemed so sisterly before,--but I took the seat close to her
and talked to her as openly as though she were Jill or Uncle Max; now and
then I paused, and we could hear Colonel Ferguson's deep voice: he was
evidently turning over the pages of Sara's music.

'Go on, Ursula; I like to hear it,' Lesbia would say when I hesitated;
she was not looking at me, but at the fire, with her cheek supported
against her hand.

'What do you think of it?' I asked, presently, when I had finished and
we had both been silent a few minutes listening to one of Mendelssohn's
Songs without Words that Sara was playing very nicely.

'What do I think of it?' she replied, and her voice startled me, it was
so full of pain. 'Oh, Ursula, I think you are to be envied! If I could
only co