And so the days of anxious waiting for the great visit sped past; and in the interval Elizabeth might have fallen hopelessly into idle habits had it not been for the one person who, quietly and unnoticed, exercised the strongest influence over her life. To the little girl's surprise, Mother MacAllister was the one person who held out no hopes concerning Mrs. Jarvis. It seemed strange; for Mother MacAllister was the most sympathetic person in the whole wide world, and, besides, the only person who could always be depended upon to understand. But she did not seem to care how rich or great or glorious that great lady was, and took no interest whatever in the hopes of her coming visit. But she did take a vital interest in her little girl's progress at school, and one day she managed to find the key to those intellectual faculties which Elizabeth had kept so long locked away. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the two comrades--the tall, stooped woman with the white hair and the beautiful wrinkled face, and the little girl with the blue-checked pinafore, the long, heavy braid, and the big inquiring eyes--were washing up the supper dishes. They were alone, for Charles Stuart and his father and Long Pete Fowler, the hired man, were away at the barn attending to the milking and the chores. The long bars of golden light from the setting sun came slanting down through the purple pines of the Long Hill. The snowy fields were gleaming with their radiance--rose pink and pure gold with deep blue shadows along the fences and in the hollows. The old kitchen, spotlessly clean, was flooded with the evening light--the yellow painted floor, the shining kettle sputtering comfortably on the stove, and the tin milk-pans ranged along the walls all gave back the sunset glow. This was the hour Elizabeth enjoyed most--the hour when she and Mother MacAllister were safe from the teasing and tormenting of Charles Stuart. She was wiping the cups and saucers with great pride and care. They were the half-dozen blue willow-pattern cups and saucers which Mother MacAllister had saved from the wreck of her once complete set. They were used only on rare occasions, but to-night Elizabeth had been permitted to set them out. She never tired of hearing their romantic story, and Mother MacAllister told it again, as they washed and wiped and put them away on the top shelf of the cupboard.