support to her for so many months past. All that she could do was to consult Lucilla--it might be to wound Lucilla, for anything she could tell; but when a poor creature is helpless and weak, and has but one friend in the world who is strong, what can she do but apply to her sustainer and guardian? When, after beating about wildly from one point to another, she arrived ultimately, as might have been predicted, and as Miss Marjoribanks had expected from the first, at that conclusion, there remained a further difficulty in respect to the means of communication. Lucilla had settled quite calmly in her own mind that it would be by the medium of a three-cornered note, a matter in which there was no difficulty whatever, for the widow was sufficiently fluent with her pen; but then Lucilla had not thought of Mary Jane, who was the only possible messenger. It was to this point now that Mrs Mortimer's ideas addressed themselves. At that moment the rain poured down fiercer than ever, the bricks of the uncovered wall grew black with the wet, and the wistaria crouched and shivered about the porch as if it wanted to be taken indoors. And then to get wet, and perhaps catch cold, was a thing Mary Jane conscientiously avoided, like the rest of the world; and it was with a sense of alarm even stronger than that excited by the possibility of injuring Lucilla, that Mrs Mortimer very gently and modestly rang her bell. "I don't think it rains quite so heavily," said the timid experimentalist, feeling her heart beat as she made this doubtful statement. "Have you a pair of goloshes, Mary Jane?" "No," said the little handmaiden, with precaution; "and, please, if it's for the post, it rains worse nor ever; and I don't think as mother would like----" "Oh, it is not for the post," said Mrs Mortimer; "it is for Miss Marjoribanks. You can take mine, and then you will not get your feet wet. I go out so very little; you may have them--to keep--Mary Jane. And you can take the big shawl that hangs in the passage, and an umbrella. I don't think it is so heavy as it was."