working; her table-cover lay on her lap. She was looking out vaguely upon the rain, and the wet trees, and the village roofs. It was supposed that Miss Jean was the one of the family who leant towards the sentimental, and no doubt there had been incidents in her gentle life which justified the opinion. She was thinking, as she would have said--perhaps even so late as this the soft-hearted, middle-aged maiden was dreaming--but, if so, nobody was the wiser for Miss Jean's dreams. They never prevented her ready attention to any appeal, and she only indulged in them when quite alone. They alternated with the flowers of the table-cover in her mind, and both were emanations of the same soft and tender spirit. The room was very still around this one quiet figure; behind her the dim atmosphere was brighter with the glow of a small, but cheerful fire. It was the opinion of the Miss Murrays, as of many other comfortable people, that in wet weather an old house was always the better for a fire. The little _pétillement_ of the fire and the soft rush of the falling rain outside were all the sounds audible in the extreme stillness. What wonder that Miss Jean should drop the embroidered pansies on her lap, and take to thoughts which were a sort of spiritual prototypes of the pansies--thoughtlets, little musings, dreamikins, so to speak; they brought now and then from her gentle bosom the softest little sigh, not a sigh that hurt, but one that soothed. There was no part of her time that Miss Jean liked better than these moments which she spent by herself, when Margaret was reading history with Lilias. She closed up a pretty little note-book, which had been in her hand, when she heard the sound of the bell. If truth must be told, she had been writing in it a pretty little verse--a pansy of still another kind; for Miss Jean belonged to the age when it was a pretty accomplishment to write charming little "copies of verses," a thing very sweet and delightful for a young woman to do. The character of the place seemed to change at once when Lewis came in. Life, and cheerfulness, and variety came with him. He was very anxious to please and make himself agreeable. He told her of his walk to the water-side, of Stormont in the river, and Adam on the bank; water above and water below. "You will think me very effeminate," he said. "I much prefer this nice drawing-room;" and he looked round it with an admiring air that pleased Miss Jean. To tell the truth, Lewis was thinking that, though picturesque, it was probably damp, a suggestion which would not have pleased Miss Jean at all. "Gentlemen are very venturesome," said Miss Jean; "indeed, the wonder is that they are not all laid-up with rheumatism--but they're used to it, I suppose." "I am not at all used to it," said Lewis; and then he added, with one of his confidential impulses: "A great part of my life I have spent in attendance upon a dear old friend."