'Yes--may I stay for a moment? thank you, my dear,' as Olive willingly made room for her. 'How beautiful and simple; just the words she loved,' and Mildred read the inscription and chosen text--'His banner over me is love.' 'Do you like it? Mamma chose it herself; she said it was so true of her life.' 'Happy Betha!' and in a lower voice, 'Happy Olive!' 'Why, Aunt Milly?' 'To have had such a mother, though it be only to lose her. Think of the dear bright smiles with which she will welcome you all home.' Olive's eyes glistened, but she made no answer. Mildred was struck with the quiet repose of her manner; the anxious careworn look had disappeared for the time, and the soft intelligence of her face bore the stamp of some lofty thought. 'Do you always come here, Olive? At this time I mean.' 'Yes, always--I have never missed once; it seems to rest me for the week. Just at first, perhaps, it made me sad, but now it is different.' 'How do you mean, my dear?' 'I don't know that I can put it exactly in words,' she returned, troubled by a want of definite expression. 'At first it used to make me cry, and wish I were dead, but now I never feel so like living as when I am here.' 'Try to make me understand. I don't think you will find me unsympathising,' in Mildred's tenderest tones. 'You are never that, Aunt Milly. I find myself telling you things already. Don't you see, I can come and pour out all my trouble to her, just as I used to? and sometimes I fancy she answers me, not in speaking, you know, but in the thoughts that come as I sit here.' 'That is a beautiful fancy, Olive.' 'Others might laugh at it--Cardie would, I know, but it is impossible to believe mamma can help loving us wherever she is; and she always liked us to come and tell her everything, when we were naughty, or if we had anything nice happening to us.' 'Yes, dear, I quite understand. But you were reading.' 'That was mamma's favourite book. I generally read a few pages before I go. One seems to understand it all so much better in this quiet place, with the sun shining, and all those graves round. One's little troubles seem so small and paltry by comparison.' Mildred did not answer. She took the book out of Olive's hand--it was _Thomas à Kempis_--and a red pencil line had marked the following passage:--