“Well, wonders don’t ever cease, I guess,” she said, more to herself than to her little confidant. “Who’d have thought it!” “Who’d have thought what, Aunty Rose?” inquired Carolyn May. “Your uncle and Mandy Parlow have made it up,” breathed the woman, evidently much impressed by the wonder of it. “Yes, indeed!” cried the child. “Isn’t it nice? They aren’t mad at each other any more.” “No, I should say they’re not,” Aunty Rose observed with grimness. “Far from it. It’s a fact! I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. They haven’t got eyes for anybody but each other.” “Oh! Haven’t they, Aunty Rose?” queried Carolyn May with sudden earnestness. “I should say not, child! Holding hands in there like a pair of—Well, do you know what it means, Carolyn May?” “That they love each other,” the child said boldly. “And I’m _so_ glad for them!” “So am I,” declared the woman, still in a whisper. “But it means changes here. Things won’t be the same for long. I know Joseph Stagg for what he is.” “What is he, Aunty Rose?” asked Carolyn May in some trepidation, for the housekeeper seemed to be much moved. “He’s a very determined man. Once he gets set in a way, he carries everything before him. Mandy Parlow is going to be made Mrs. Joseph Stagg so quick that it’ll astonish her. Now, you believe me, Carolyn May.” “Oh!” was the little girl’s comment. “There’ll be changes here very sudden. ‘Two’s company, three’s a crowd,’ Carolyn May. Never was a truer saying. Those two will want just each other—and nobody else.” “Oh, Aunty Rose!” murmured the little girl faintly. She had stopped eating the bread and milk. The housekeeper was too deeply interested in her own cogitations to notice how the child was being affected by her speech. “I’ve told him a thousand times he should be married,” concluded Aunty Rose. “And if Mandy Parlow’s the woman for him, then it’s all right. Whether she is or not, he’ll marry her. Jedidiah or a thousand others couldn’t stop Joseph Stagg now. I know what it means with him when he once makes up his mind. “But there’ll be no room here for anybody but those two, with their billing and cooing. ‘Two’s company, three’s a crowd.’ “Well, Carolyn May, if you’ve finished your supper, we’d better go up to bed. It’s long past your bedtime.” “Yes, Aunty Rose,” said the little girl in a muffled voice. Aunty Rose did not notice that Carolyn May did not venture to the door of the sitting-room to bid either Uncle Joe or Miss Amanda good-night. The child followed the woman upstairs with faltering steps, and in the unlighted bedroom that had been Hannah Stagg’s she knelt at Aunty Rose’s knee and murmured her usual petitions. “Do bless Uncle Joe and Miss Amanda, now they’re so happy,” was a phrase that might have thrilled Aunty Rose at another time. But she was so deep in her own thoughts that she heard what Carolyn May said perfunctorily.