ut warning.

Maggie was reading, but it appeared that Mrs. Baxter had noticed her
lower her book suddenly, with an odd expression.

Maggie had blinked a moment.

"Nothing," she said. "I was just thinking of Laurie; I don't know
why."

But since then she had been able to reassure herself. Her fancies were
but fancies, she told herself; and they had ceased to trouble her. The
boy's letters to his mother were ordinary and natural: he was reading
fairly hard; his coach was as pleasant a person as he had seemed; he
hoped to run down to Stantons for a few days at Christmas. There was
nothing whatever to alarm anyone; plainly his ridiculous attitude
about Spiritualism had been laid by; and, better still, he was
beginning to recover himself after his sorrow in September.

It was an extraordinarily peaceful and uneventful life that the two
led together--the kind of life that strengthens previous proclivities
and adds no new ones; that brings out the framework of character and
motive as dropping water clears the buried roots of a tree. This was
all very well for Mrs. Baxter, whose character was already fully
formed, it may be hoped; but not so utterly satisfactory for the girl,
though the process was pleasant enough.

After Mass and breakfast she spent the morning as she wished,
overseeing little extra details of the house--gardening plans, the
poultry, and so forth--and reading what she cared to. The afternoon
was devoted to the old lady's airing; the evening till dinner to
anything she wished; and after dinner again to gentle conversation.
Very little happened. The Vicar and his wife dined there occasionally,
and still more occasionally Father Mahon. Now and then there were
vague entertainments to be patronized in the village schoolroom, in an
atmosphere of ink and hair-oil, and a mild amount of rather dreary and
stately gaiety connected with the big houses round. Mrs. Baxter
occasionally put in appearances, a dignified and aristocratic old
figure with her gentle eyes and black lace veil; and Maggie went with
her.

The pleasure of this life grew steadily upon Maggie. She was one of
that fraction of the world that finds entertainment to lie, like the
kingdom of God, within. She did not in the least wish to be "amused"
or stimulated and distracted. She was perfectly and serenely content
with the fowls, the garden, her small selected tasks, her religion,
and herself.

The result was, as it always is in such cases, she b