rs were always
growing. Here might be seen the blue forget-me-not, the meadow-sweet,
great branches of wild honeysuckle, dog-roses, and many other flowers
too numerous to mention. As a rule, Lucy loved flowers, as most country
girls do; but she had neither eyes nor ears for them to-day. She was
thinking of her companions, and how she was to tolerate them. And as she
walked she saw in a bend in the road, coming to meet her, a stout,
elderly, very plainly dressed woman.

Lucy stood still for an instant, and then uttered a perfect shout of
welcome, and ran into the arms of her aunt Susan.

Mrs. Susan Brett was the wife of a hard-working clergyman in a town
about ten miles away. She had no children of her own, and devoted her
whole time to helping her husband in his huge parish. She spent little
or no money on dress, and was certainly a very plain woman. She had a
large, pale face, somewhat flat, with wide nostrils, a long upper lip,
small pale-blue eyes, and a somewhat bulgy forehead. Plain she
undoubtedly was, but no one who knew her well ever gave her looks a
thought, so genial was her smile, so hearty her hand-clasp, so
sympathetic her words. She was beloved by her husband's parishioners,
and in especial she was loved by Lucy Merriman, who had a sort of
fascination in watching her and in wondering at her.

From time to time Lucy had visited the Bretts in their small Rectory in
the town of Dartford. Nobody in all the world could be more welcome to
the child in her present mood than her aunt Susan, and she ran forward
with outstretched arms.

"Oh, Aunt Susy, I am glad to see you! But what has brought you to-day?"

"Why, this, my dear," said Mrs. Brett. "I just had three hours to spare
while William was busy over his sermon for next Sunday. He is writing a
new sermon--he hasn't done that for quite six months--and he said he
wanted the house to himself, and no excuse for any one to come in. And
he just asked me if I'd like to have a peep into the country; that
always means a visit to Sunnyside. So I said I'd look up the trains, and
of course there was one just convenient, so I clapped on my hat--you
don't mind it being my oldest one--and here I am."

"Oh, I am so glad!" said Lucy. "I think I wanted you, Aunt Susan, more
than any one else in all the world."

She tucked her hand through her aunt's arm as she spoke, and they turned
and walked slowly along by the riverside.

Mrs. Brett, if she had a plain face, had by