Is that you, Chris?' inquired a voice which, if I had not known the speaker, I should have imagined had proceeded from a little child. 'Yes, Jessie,' I answered, with a thrill of delight. 'Where are you going?' 'I am going to work.' 'Good-morning.' 'Good-morning.' I had never been so happy in my work as I was during this day, and yet I wanted the hours to fly so that I might be home again. When eight o'clock struck, I whipped off my apron eagerly, and ran out of the office. My mother was at the gate. 'I didn't expect you, mother.' 'No, dear child. I wished to leave your uncle and Jessie together for a little while. She wanted to come with me, but I thought it best to leave her at home. Shall we take a walk, my dear?' 'Yes, but not a long one. Mother, who is she?' 'I do not know, my dear; and your uncle hasn't said a word--neither has she.' 'Not a word! Why, mother, she couldn't keep quiet!' 'I don't think she could, dear,' said my mother, with a smile. 'I mean not a word as to who she is. I think she gave your uncle a letter, for he has been writing to-day with one before him; but I am not sure.' 'I have been thinking about her all day, and I can't make her out. Anyhow, I hope she will stop with us. The house is quite different with her in it. Don't you think so? She is as light-hearted and as sparkling as a--a sunbeam.' I thought it a very happy simile. 'She couldn't be anything else.' 'My dear,' said my mother gravely, she was sobbing in her sleep last night as if her heart would break.' I looked so grieved at this that my mother quickly added, But she has been talking to your uncle to-day just as she did last night. She is like an April day; but then she is quite a child.' 'A child! Why, mother, she must be--how old should _you_ think?' 'About fifteen, I should say, Chris.' 'So how can she be quite a child? And she doesn't talk like a child.' 'She does and she doesn't, my dear. I shouldn't wonder,' she said, with her sweet laugh, that because you are nearly eighteen, you think yourself quite a man.' 'I _am_ growing, mother, am I not?' And I straightened myself stiffly up. Why, I am taller than you!' 'You will be as tall as your father was, my dear.' 'I am glad of that. She said men had no business to be little.' '_She_ said!' repeated my mother, laughing; and she tapped my cheek merrily, as she had done on the previous night, and again I blushed. Jessie ran into the shop to welcome us when we arrived home.