"How are you, and how is the high and mighty Gabriel?" Having received satisfactory answers to her friendly inquiries, Miss Fanny plunged at once into the business that had brought her out so early. "What do you think, Lucy? Margaret Gaither and her daughter have returned. They are at the Gaither Place, and Miss Polly has just told me that there isn't a mouthful to eat in the house--and there is Margaret at the point of death! Why, it is dreadful. Something must be done at once, that's certain. I wouldn't have bothered you, but you know what the circumstances are. I don't know what Margaret's feelings are with respect to me; you know we never were bosom friends. Yet I never really disliked her, and now, after all that has happened, I couldn't bear to think that she was suffering for anything. Likely enough she would be embarrassed if I called and offered assistance. What is to be done?" "Wouldn't it be best for some one to call--some one who was her friend?" The cool, level voice of Gabriel's grandmother seemed to clear the atmosphere. "Whatever is to be done should be done sympathetically. If I could see Polly, there would be no difficulty." "Well, I saw Miss Polly," said Miss Fanny, "and she told me the whole situation, and I was on the point of saying that I'd run back home and send something over, when an upper window was opened, and Margaret Gaither's daughter stood there gazing at me--and she's a beauty, Lucy; there's a chance for Gabriel there. Well, you know how deaf Miss Polly is; if I had said what I wanted to say, that child would have heard every word, and there was something in her face that held me dumb. Miss Polly talked and I nodded my head, and that was all. The old soul must have thought the cat had my tongue." Miss Fanny laughed uneasily as she made the last remark. "If Margaret is ill, she should have attention. I will go there this morning." This was Mrs. Lumsden's decision. "I'll send the carriage for you as soon as I can run home," said Miss Fanny. With that she rose to go, and hustled out of the room, but in the hallway she turned and remarked: "Tell Gabriel that he will have to lengthen his suspenders, now that Nan has put on long dresses." "Oh, no!" protested Mrs. Lumsden. "We mustn't put any such nonsense in Gabriel's head. Nan is for Francis Bethune. If it isn't all arranged it ought to be. Why, the land of Dorrington joins the land that Bethune will fall heir to some day, and it seems natural that the two estates should become one." Gabriel's grandmother had old-fashioned ideas about marriage. "Oh, I see!" replied Miss Fanny with a laugh; "you are so intent on joining the two estates in wedlock that you take no account of the individuals. But brother Pulaski says that for many years to come, the more land a man has the poorer he will become."