Fidelia did not answer immediately. Indeed, she rose and went the length of the garden, and stood looking over the fields to the river and the hills, and she was saying some hard things to herself as she stood there. In a little she turned and came slowly back again. "Well, dear, what do you say?" said Eunice gently. "I say that the plan is good, if you like it. It is I who am all wrong. It is hateful in me, I know, but, Eunice, I could not have any one come between you and me. Not _any one_, Eunice." "But, my darling," cried Eunice, laughing a little, and stretching out her hands, "that could never be! Why, you are all I have got!" Fidelia sat down on the step, and laid her face for a minute on her sister's lap. "I never knew till lately that I had an envious and jealous disposition," said she in a little. "But you need not be jealous of Ruby Stone, or of any one else, as far as I am concerned, dear. I am almost sorry now, that she did not stay another day, so that you might have seen her. Oh, you will like her, I am sure!--she is so sincere and simple, and so much in earnest." A great deal more was said about their plans, and about Mrs Stone, but not a word about Dr Justin Everett. It was good to be at home again. A great many people, young and old, came to see Fidelia within the next three days. In the meantime Mrs Stone returned, and all necessary arrangements for the year were made between her and the sisters. Mrs Stone would have liked to rent the place or to buy it; but it was not to be thought of that the sisters should give up their home altogether, and so their plans were made for the year only. Mrs Stone was a small dark-eyed woman, thin and brown, with deeper wrinkles between her eyes than her forty years should have shown. When she sat with her eyes cast down on her work, and her lips firmly shut, one who did not know her well might be excused for saying that she looked "hard." But when she looked up, and spoke, or smiled, her face changed. She had a good and pleasant face, with some signs of trouble upon it. Her married life had been a time of discipline to her, she owned to Eunice, when they first met, and to her she spoke of the troubles of the time; but she spoke to no one else of it. She was capable and active, and did what was to be done in the house with such evident pleasure and success that the housekeeping gradually fell into her hands, and Fidelia had more liberty than ever she had at home before. And she made a good use of her liberty. She had preparations for next year to make, and friends to visit, and began to feel more light-hearted--more like herself--than she had done for a good while.