eality or
imagination, and so at last it was Martha who took thought for her
mistress, and gave freedom to her own good taste. After a while,
without any one's observing the change, the every-day ways of doing
things in the house came to be the stately ways that had once belonged
only to the entertainment of guests. Happily both mistress and maid
seized all possible chances for hospitality, yet Miss Harriet nearly
always sat alone at her exquisitely served table with its fresh
flowers, and the beautiful old china which Martha handled so lovingly
that there was no good excuse for keeping it hidden on closet shelves.
Every year when the old cherry-trees were in fruit, Martha carried the
round white old English dish with a fretwork edge, full of pointed
green leaves and scarlet cherries, to the minister, and his wife never
quite understood why every year he blushed and looked so conscious of
the pleasure, and thanked Martha as if he had received a very
particular attention. There was no pretty suggestion toward the
pursuit of the fine art of housekeeping in Martha's limited
acquaintance with newspapers that she did not adopt; there was no
refined old custom of the Pyne housekeeping that she consented to let
go. And every day, as she had promised, she thought of Miss
Helena,--oh, many times in every day: whether this thing would please
her, or that be likely to fall in with her fancy or ideas of fitness.
As far as was possible the rare news that reached Ashford through an
occasional letter or the talk of guests was made part of Martha's own
life, the history of her own heart. A worn old geography often stood
open at the map of Europe on the light-stand in her room, and a little
old-fashioned gilt button, set with a bit of glass like a ruby, that
had broken and fallen from the trimming of one of Helena's dresses, was
used to mark the city of her dwelling-place. In the changes of a
diplomatic life Martha followed her lady all about the map. Sometimes
the button was at Paris, and sometimes at Madrid; once, to her great
anxiety, it remained long at St. Petersburg. For such a slow scholar
Martha was not unlearned at last, since everything about life in these
foreign towns was of interest to her faithful heart. She satisfied her
own mind as she threw crumbs to the tame sparrows; it was all part of
the same thing and for the same affectionate reasons.

V.

One Sunday afternoon in early summer Miss Harriet Pyne came