And John was sorry that one as young and sprightly as Lottie should marry a man so wholly unlike herself as the sober, middle-aged Amasa Steele. He was sorry to have her marry at all, for he had found it very pleasant to chat and laugh and sing with her on the occasions when chance threw her in his way, but further than that he did not care. He had known and loved Kitty Clew ever since she was a child, and he drew her to school on his sled, and he expected one day to make her his wife, so foolish Lottie was mistaken when she thought there was a pang in his heart as he saw her made Mrs. Amasa Steele, and called her by that name. She knew nothing of Kitty Clew, and went on dreaming her little romance and fancying there was one joy less in John Craig’s life until she heard he was to be married. There was a shadow on her brow, and she felt somehow as if John had misused and deceived her, while to crown all she was expected to call on his wife and make a friend of her. It was a hard case and Lottie felt aggrieved, and the first time she met John Craig she was very cool toward him, and never asked for his wife or hinted that she knew there was such a creature in the world. John felt her manner keenly, but did not tell Kitty, who, knowing that Mrs. Steele had returned, began to look daily for the call she so certainly expected. One after another the dresses her aunties had pronounced useless were brought out and worn, and in the prettiest of toilets Kitty waited morning, noon and night for one who never came. Lottie did not call, neither did any one else except the clergyman to whom Kitty had brought a letter of introduction from her own rector, and who dropped in for a few moments to see his new parishioner. Accustomed at home to be first in every good work, Kitty asked what she could do, and was told of the mission school, where teachers were always needed, and of the regular sewing society of the church, which met one day in each week. Kitty was pleased with the mission school, and entered heart and soul into the work, and found fast friends among the ragged girls and boys, who looked upon her as a kind of divinity. From the sewing society, however, she shrank at first, dreading to encounter so many strangers; but when she heard what need there was for help, she laid aside her own personal feelings and went week after week, mostly from a sense of duty, and a little, it may be, with a hope, that by some chance she might come to know those with whom she worshiped Sunday after Sunday, and with whom she had more than once knelt around the chancel on communion days.