The house had no more changes. Here was her pretty room. Oh, yes, there was a new bright rag carpet on the floor. She went around with a tender touch on everything, patting the white pillow-slips, straightening a picture or two, and wondering in a curious fashion if sometime her brother's wife would be here and a group of merry children--she hoped there would be a houseful of them. And gran would be a great-grandfather, and sit in the big chair at the corner of the fireplace, that he had covered over with buckskin of his own tanning. Where she would be she did not plan. Only she would not mind being an old maid, she thought. Everybody in the little circle supposed she would marry Dr. Langdale, and were surprised when his mother sorrowfully admitted it was not to be. "There's them that goes through the woods, and picks up a crooked stick at the last;" and Norah shook her head resentfully. "My stick won't be crooked, I promise you," laughed the girl. "You may have no stick at all and go limping afoot and alone," was the curt rejoinder. She was very happy, why she could hardly tell, for she felt she ought not to be. There came a letter with the stamp of the office on it and it had two enclosures. Her guardian's was most pleasant and fatherly. They missed her very much, but Mrs. Jarvis had taken on a new phase of kindliness so that he should not long too much for Daffodil, and Aldis was like a son. They went out driving together. And Aldis had grown so fond of the garden that he had not used to care much about. The weather was fine and he really was quite well for an old gentleman. She almost dreaded to open the other. A blinding sort of consciousness pervaded her as if she were a prisoner, as if there was asked of her a curious, undefined surrender that she could hardly understand. Before, she had gone on simply and been overtaken, as it were, given without knowing just what she gave. Was it because she was older, wiser? She had still to learn that there were many mysteries in love that only a lifetime could explain. She let her eyes wander over it in a vague sort of fashion. Did she really belong to him? He seemed to take possession of her in a way that she could not gainsay, could not even refuse. But did she want to refuse? She went out to the keeping room after awhile. Her mother sat alone, sewing some trifle. She came and laid both letters in her lap, then went and sat on the door sill where a great maple threw its green arms about in the soft breeze. There was a cuckoo somewhere, a yellow-hammer searching for half-hidden food, and a thrush with his long, sweet note. "Yes," her mother remarked, as if in answer to a question. "He laid the matter before your father a month ago in the letter that came with you."