"Yes it does," said Ann, who would not abate one jot of her assertions; "with _you_, who ain't like tother people, and who never was. You liked tother people better than yourself, and so got posed upon--but you're all the better for it--lor bless you!--you'll see that in _there_. And, Mattie, there's your father and me, still--we shan't drop away from you. The likes of me," she added, after a little more reflection, "isn't much to brag on, but you'll find me allus true--that's something." "Everything!" "You ain't like me, with no one to look to--with no one but you in all the world that would do me a good turn if I wished it ever so. With you there isn't one but'd go anywhere to help you, knowing what a contented soul you are. And when it comes to you, allus so cheerful, getting mopish--you, who finds somethin' good in things that others fret at, and makes us warm and comfurble instead o' shivering with fright--why, it's sixes and sevens all a topsy turvy anyhow, and no one to look up to nowhere!" "I must come back to my old self, if I have wandered from it so much that your honest heart is touched by the change, Ann," said Mattie. "Perhaps I have been gloomy without a cause--perhaps you are right and I am wrong--though I don't confess to all your implications, mind--and from you I can bear to hear my lesson better than from others at this time. Ann, I'm not going to break my heart." "God bless you! I knew that." "I'm going to be just my old self again--nothing more. Not quite that, suddenly, but finding my way back, as it were. There, you'll leave me now--to think." "Only to think?" said Ann, with a wistful look at the holy volume in her lap; "it's too much thinking that has done this harm." "To think what is best, Ann," said Mattie, rising, "and, failing that, to pray for it; there, leave me now. Don't fear for me ever again." "And I haven't done wrong in talking of all this--you were angry when I first comed in, Mattie?" "I am glad that you came now--I must have been aging very rapidly to have alarmed one who always had such trust in me. It's all over now!" When Ann Packet had withdrawn, Mattie clasped her hands together and cried again, "It is all over!" as though for ever some hope had been dismissed rather than some fear. Hopes and fears had perhaps gone down the stream of time together, and it was impossible to arrest the sighs for the fair blossoms which had been once. But she was stronger from that day; Mattie was not likely to harden, and it had only needed one warm-hearted counsellor to turn her from the wrong path she was pursuing. The right counsellor had come--a humble messenger, but a true one; one to whom Mattie could listen without shame. "I was never fit for him--in his new estate, I might have brought him shame rather than happiness--and it was his happiness I tried for, not my own!"