Rosalind was seated musing by the window, a little tired, wondering when the “cure” would be over, and if Aunt Sophy would then recover the use of her limbs again, and consent to go home. Mrs. Lennox was always good and kind, and the children were very dear to their mother-sister; but now and then, not always, perhaps not often, there comes to a young woman like Rosalind a longing for companionship such as neither aunts or children can give. Neither the children nor her aunt shared her thoughts; they understood her very imperfectly on most occasions; they had love to give her, but not a great deal more. She sighed, as people do when there is something wanting to them, then turned upon herself with a kind of rage and asked, “What did she want?” as girls will do on whom it has been impressed that this wish for companionship is a thing that is wrong, perhaps unmaidenly. But, after all, there was no harm in it. Oh, that Uncle John were here! she said to herself. Even Roland Hamerton would have been something. He could have tried at least his very best to think as she did. Oh, that--! She did not put any name to this aspiration. She was not very sure who--which--it meant, and then she breathed a still deeper sigh, and tears came to her eyes. Oh! for _her_ of whom nobody knew where she was wandering or in what circumstances she might be. She heard the children’s voices vaguely through her thinking, and by and by a word caught her ear. “The lady said I was to do it like this. She did it for me on the table out in the garden. It nearly felled down,” said Johnny, “and then it would have broken itself, so she put it on the ground and went down on her knees.” “Oh, what did she go on her knees for, like saying her prayers, Johnny?” “Nothin’ of the sort. She just went down like this and caught hold of me. I expose,” said Johnny, whose language was not always correct, “she is stiff, like Aunt Sophy; for I was far more stronger and kept her up.” “Who is this that he is talking of, Amy?” Rosalind said. The little girl gave her a look which had some meaning in it, Rosalind could not tell what, and, giving Johnny a little push with her arm after the easy method of childhood, said, “Tell her,” turning away to examine the toy. “It was the lady,” Johnny said, turning slightly round as on a pivot, and lifting to her those great eyes which Aunt Sophy had said were like--and which always went straight to Rosalind’s heart. “What lady, dear? and where did you get that beautiful toy?” Rosalind followed the description the child had been giving, and came and knelt on the carpet beside him. “How pretty it is! Did Aunt Sophy give you that?” “It was the lady,” Johnny repeated. “What lady? Was it a stranger, Amy, that gave him such a beautiful toy?”