the ashes out of
his pipe and pocketing it. "I might teach them the Old Hundredth, one
after the other, all the morning through: she wouldn't know. So your work
ends to-morrow?"

"Not quite. The girls go to-morrow, but I have promised to be at the
square on Thursday. There's a good deal to be done, and I should like to
see Miss Crawford safely off in the afternoon."

"Where's the old woman going?"

"To Cromer for a few days. She lived there as a child, and loves it more
than any place in the world."

"Does the poor old lady think she'll grow young again there?" said Bertie.
"Well, perhaps she will," he added after a pause. "At any rate, she may
forget that she has grown old."

Punctually at the appointed hour the young music-master arrived in Standon
Square. It was for the last time, as Judith had said. Miss Crawford looked
older, and Miss Crawford's cap looked newer, than either had ever done
before. She put her weak little hand into Bertie's, and said some prim,
kindly words about the satisfaction his lessons had given, the progress
his pupils had made and the confidence she felt in his sister and himself.
As she spoke she was sure he was gratified, for the color mounted to his
face. Suddenly she stopped in the midst of her neatly-worded sentences.
"You are like your mother, Mr. Lisle," she said: "I never saw it so much
before." And she murmured something, half to herself, about her first
pupil, the dearest of them all. Bertie, for once in his life, was silent
and bashful.

The old lady rang the bell, and requested that Miss Macdonald might be
told that it was time for her lesson and that Mr. Lisle had arrived.
During the brief interval that ensued the music-master looked furtively
round the room, as if he had never seen it before. It seemed to him almost
as if he looked at it with different eyes, and read Miss Crawford's life
in it. It was a prim, light-colored drawing-room, adorned with many
trifles which were interesting as indications of patience and curious in
point of taste. There was a great deal of worsted work, and still more of
crochet. Everything that could possibly stand on a mat stood on a mat, and
other mats lay disconsolately about, waiting as cabmen wait for a fare.
Every piece of furniture was carefully arranged with a view to supporting
the greatest possible number of anti-macassars. There were water-color
paintings on the walls, and bouquets of wax flowers bloomed gayly under
glass shades on