'Olive is as left-handed as ever, and Chrissy little better. Richard is mannish, but impracticable, and a little difficult to understand. We should none of us get on at all but for Roy: he has his mother's heart-sunshine and loving smile; but even Roy has his failures. 'We want a woman among us, Milly--a woman with head and hands, and a tolerable stock of patience. Even Heriot is in difficulties, but that will keep till you come--for you will come, will you not, my dear?' 'Come! how could you doubt me, Arnold?' replied Mildred, as she laid down the letter; but 'God help me and them' followed close on the sigh. 'After all, it is a clear call to duty,' she soliloquised. 'It is not my business to decide on my fitness or unfitness, or to measure myself to my niche. We are not promised strength before the time, and no one can tell before he tries whether he be likely to fail. Richard's mannishness, and Olive's left-handed ways, and Chrissy's poorer imitation, shall not daunt me. Arnold wants me. I shall be of use to some one again, and I will go.' But Mildred, for all her bravery, grew a little pale over her brother's second letter:--'You must come at once, and not wait to summer and winter it, or, as some of our old women say, "to bide the bitterment on't." Shall I send Richard to help you about your house business, and to settle your goods and chattels? Let the old furniture go, Milly; it has stood a fair amount of wear and tear, and you are young yet, my dear. Shall I send Dick? He was his mother's right hand. The lad's mannish for his nineteen years.' Mannish again! This Richard began to be formidable. He was a bright well-looking lad of thirteen when Mildred had seen him last. But she remembered his mother's fond descriptions of Cardie's cleverness and goodness. One sentence had particularly struck her at the time. Betha had been comparing her boys, and dwelling on their good points with a mother's partiality. 'As to Roy, he needs no praise of mine; he stands so well in every one's estimation--and in his own, too--that a little fault-finding would do him good. Cardie is different: his diffidence takes the form of pride; no one understands him but I--not even his father. The one speaks out too much, and the other too little; but one of these days he will find out his son's good heart.'