But Lettie, growing red and pale, dropping the paper pattern which Mrs. Charteris has cut for her, and casting sidelong, furtive glances round upon them all from under her drooped eyelids, trembles nervously, and can scarcely keep her seat. When Cuthbert comes to the end there is a momentary silence, and Martha looks with wonder on her little sister, and Agnes exclaims in praise of the ballad, and wonders who can possibly know the story so well. Then follows a very free discussion on the subject, and some criticism from Cuthbert; and then Martha suddenly asks: “It is your story, Lettie, and you don’t often show so little interest. How do you like it? Tell us.” “I--I canna tell,” said Lettie, letting all her bits of cambric fall, and drooping her face, and returning unconsciously to her childish tongue; “for--it was me that wrote it, Martha.” And Lettie slid down off her chair to the carpet, and concealed the coming tears, and the agitated troubled pleasure, which did not quite realize yet whether this was pain or joy, on Martha’s knee. Poor Lettie! many an hour has she dreamed by the Lady’s Well--dreamed out grand histories for “us all,” or grander still “----Resolved To frame she knows not what excelling thing And win she knows not what sublime reward Of praise and honour----” But just now the sudden exultation bewilders Lettie; and there is nothing she is so much inclined to do as to run away to her room in the dark, and cry. It would be a great relief. But the confession falls like lightning upon all the rest. Cuthbert, with a burning face, thinks his own criticism the most stupid in the world. Rose laughs aloud, with a pleasure which finds no other expression so suitable. Agnes, quite startled and astonished, can do nothing but look at the bowed head, which just now she too had reproved for stooping. And Mrs. Charteris holds up her hands in astonishment, and Katie claps hers, and says that she kent all the time. But Martha, with a great flush upon her face, holds Lettie’s wet cheeks in her hands, and bends down over her, but never says a word. Children’s unpremeditated acts, simple words and things have startled Martha more than once of late, as if a deeper insight had come to her; and now there is a great motion in the heart which has passed through tempests innumerable, and Martha cannot speak for the thick-coming thoughts which crowd upon her mind.