In the sunny sitting-room, Gillian, with the firelight in her ruddy hair, moved around, dusting and arranging the place, and especially ordering the chair and footstool dedicated to her best friend. But why, when she had wiped away the last grain of dust, and placed the stool at just the best angle, and even drawn the wolfskin mat a trifle out of the centre that it might reach the front legs of the chair, why did she all at once cross her arms upon the high back, and, bowing her head upon them, sob as though her heart would break, and suffer a few great tears like the first drops of a tropic thunder-shower to roll down the leathern back and under the comfortless cushion? Lora Standish, coming noiselessly through the door from the kitchen, stood a moment wondering in the doorway, then half timidly exclaimed,-- “Why, Gillian, what’s the matter?” “Oh! It’s you, is it, or is’t a ghost that it looks like? Let’s try it!” And with a sudden gliding motion, too much like that of a snake for beauty, Gillian seized her visitor by the arm, inflicting such a nip with her cruel slender fingers as left its mark for many a day. The blood flew for a moment to Lora’s cheek, but it was the blood of warriors, and she only said as she drew back a step,-- “I am looking for Mistress Brewster. Do you know where she is?” “Yes, gone over to John Alden’s to help Priscilla in some mystery of housecraft; but come you in and sit down for a minute or so, or I’ll think, you proud peat, that you mean to slight me.” “Why should I want to slight you, Gillian?” replied Lora with the angelic smile that distinguished her, as, throwing aside the little white scarf around her head and shoulders, she came forward to the fire, and leaning against the high mantelpiece put a foot upon the fender, looking frankly the while into the sombre face of the other girl. “Oh, well,--oh, well!” muttered Gillian after a moment. “’Tis well you’re angel-like, since so soon you’ll see them.” “What say you, Gillian? ’Tis well I’m what, said you?” “Nay, sit you down, maiden,--sit you here in the Elder’s chair and put your feet to the fire, upon his footstool. There, now, be biddable and meek, as fits your face.” “Why, Jill, ’twas but yesterday that you almost smote Betty Alden to the ground because she would have sat in that chair; and after all, ’tis not half so comfortable as mother’s splint chair.” “Oh, ay,” replied Gillian, as she turned toward the bookcase and began brushing the books with a wild turkey’s wing, “that’s different,--that’s different. I wouldn’t have let you sit there but for what I saw a minute gone by.” “What you saw!” echoed Lora, not overmuch moved, for Gillian’s vagaries had long since been voted insoluble by the simple folk of The Nook. “And what was’t you saw?” “Now, now! Can you read, Lora?” “Yes. Father taught me when I was but a little trot. I learned as fast as the boys, he said.”