something yellow, or washed, to hinder the
staining, I suppose."

"Gold," said Lois.

"Gold?"

"Yes. Plated with gold."

"Well I never saw anything like the sideboard down-stairs; the
sideboard and the tea-table. It is funny, Lois, as I said, why some
should have so much, and others so little."

"We, you mean? What should we do with a load of silver?"

"I wish I had it, and then you'd see! You should have a silk dress, to
begin with, and so should I."

"Never mind," said Lois, letting her eyelids fall again with an
expression of supreme content, having finished her gruel. "There are
compensations, Madge."

"Compensations! What compensations? We are hardly respectably dressed,
you and I, for this place."

"Never mind!" said Lois again. "If you had been sick as I was, and in
that place, and among those people, you would know something."

"What should I know?"

"How delightful this chair is;--and how good that gruel, out of a china
cup;--and how delicious all this luxury! Mrs. Wishart isn't as rich as
I am to-night."

"The difference is, she can keep it, and you cannot, you poor child!"

"O yes, I can keep it," said Lois, in the slow, happy accent with which
she said everything to-night;--"I can keep the remembrance of it, and
the good of it. When I get back to my work, I shall not want it."

"Your work!" said Madge.

"Yes."

"Esterbrooke!"

"Yes, if they want me."

"You are never going back to that place!" exclaimed Madge
energetically. "Never! not with my good leave. Bury yourself in that
wild country, and kill yourself with hard work! Not if I know it."

"If that is the work given me," said Lois, in the same calm voice.
"They want somebody there, badly; and I have made a beginning."

"A nice beginning!--almost killed yourself. Now, Lois, don't think
about anything! Do you know, Mrs. Wishart says you are the handsomest
girl she ever saw!"

"That's a mistake. I know several much handsomer."

"She tried to make Mr. Dillwyn say so too; and he wouldn't."

"Naturally."

"It was funny to hear them; she tried to drive him up to the point, and
he wouldn't be driven; he said one clever thing after another, but
always managed to give her no answer; till at last she pinned him with
a point-blank question."

"What did he do then?"

"Said what you said; that he had seen women who would be called
handsomer."

The conversation dropped here, for Lois made no reply, and Madge
recollected she had ta