“I might have known!” the girl went on, “I needn’t have been afraid, need I, Grandmother? You aren’t like other folks, you’ve never lived; you don’t know what life is, do you, Grandmother? I’d be sorry for you if I wasn’t so glad for myself, so glad, so glad! Do you think I’m crazy? I want to kiss you, little Grandmother! What’s the matter? did my pin scratch you?” Grandmother had given a cry as the girl flung her arms round her; a little low cry, instantly silent. “Yes—dear,” she said quietly, but with that little flutter in her voice that one who loved her might have noticed; “I think it must have been the pin. Oh, Rachel,” she said, “I hope you will be so happy, so happy! I hope there will never be anything but happiness for you and Manuel, my dear.” Rachel opened her dark eyes wide. “Why, of course there won’t!” she said. “Grandmother’s all right!” she said an hour later, when she had run to meet her lover in the dewy orchard, and they were coming home together in the sunset light; “she’s all right. She didn’t say much—I don’t know as I gave her a chance, Manuel. I had so much to say myself; but she was real pleased, and wished me joy. She’s good, Grandmother is. I mean never to be hateful to her again if I can help it. How sweet those lilies smell, Manuel!” “Is she happy, do you think?” said Manuel; it seemed to say itself, without will of his. “Who? Grandmother? of course she is! You don’t expect her to cry all her life for an old man, do you? She’s as happy as a person can be who has never lived. Hush! hear her singing this minute!” Yes! hear her singing, in the quiet twilight garden where she walks alone. “‘Oh! brother, tell me here Why hold that soul so dear?’ ‘Because, alas! since e’er ’twas born, I feel the piercing of its thorn.’” CHAPTER VI HOW SHE WENT VISITING