'Yes, he is a tolerably nice boy,' returned Polly, condescendingly; 'and we shall get on very well together, I dare say. Now I will leave you in peace, Aunt Milly, to finish dressing; for I mean to make acquaintance with that big green hill before breakfast.' Mildred was not sorry to be left in peace. It was still early. So, while Polly wetted her feet in the grass, Mildred went softly downstairs to refresh her eyes and memory with a quiet look at the old rooms in their morning freshness. The door of her brother's study stood open, and she ventured in, almost holding her breath, lest her step should reach his ear in the adjoining room. There was the chair where he always sat, with his gray head against the light, the one narrow old-fashioned window framing only a small portion of the magnificent prospect. There were the overflowing waste-paper baskets, as usual, brimming over their contents on the carpet--the table a hopeless chaos of documents, pamphlets, and books of reference. There were some attempts at arrangement in the well-filled bookcases that occupied two sides of the small room, but the old corner behind the mother's chair and work-table still held the debris of the renowned Tower of Babel, and a family tendency to draw out the lower books without removing the upper ones had resulted in numerous overthrows, so that even Mr. Lambert objected to add to the dusty confusion. Books and papers were everywhere; they littered even the couch--that couch where Betha had lain for so many months, only tired, before they discovered what ailed her--the couch where her husband had laid the little light figure morning after morning, till she had grown too ill to be moved even that short distance. Looking round, Mildred could understand the growing helplessness of the man who had lost his right band and helpmeet; the answer and ready sympathy that never failed him were wanting now; the comely, bright presence had gone from his sight; the tones that had always vibrated so sweetly in his ear were silent for ever. With his lonely broodings there must ever mix a bitter regret, and the dull, perpetual anguish of a yearning never to be satisfied. Earth is full of these desolations, which come alike on the evil and the good--mysteries of suffering never to be understood here, but which, to such natures as Arnold Lambert's, are but as the Refiner's furnace, purging the dross of earthly passion and centring them on things above. Instinctively Mildred comprehended this, as her eye fell on the open pages of the Bible--the Bible that had been her husband's wedding gift to Betha, and in which she had striven to read with failing eyes the very day before her death. Mildred touched it reverently and turned away. She lingered for a moment in the dining-room, where a buxom North countrywoman was laying the table for breakfast. Everything here was unchanged.