Life with most people is little more than a succession of high and low tides. There are times when the stream runs low, and when there is nothing to be seen but the dull sandbanks, or even mud-banks, for months, or even years together; and then all at once the waters swell, and come rushing twice a day like the sea, carrying life and movement with them. Miss Marjoribanks had been subject to the _eaux mortes_ for a long time: but now the spring-tides had rushed back. A day or two after Mr Ashburton had been revealed to her as the predestined member, something occurred, not in itself exciting, but which was not without its ultimate weight upon the course of affairs. It was the day when Aunt Jemima was expected in Grange Lane. She was Aunt Jemima to Lucilla; but the Doctor called her Mrs John, and was never known to address her by any more familiar title. She was, as she herself described it, a widow lady, and wore the dress of her order, and was the mother of Tom Marjoribanks. She was not a frequent visitor at Carlingford, for she and her brother-in-law had various points on which they were not of accord. The Doctor, for his part, could not but feel perennially injured that the boy had fallen to the lot of Mrs John, while he had only a girl--even though that girl was Lucilla; and Aunt Jemima could not forgive him for the rude way in which he treated her health, which was so delicate, and his want of sympathy for many other people who were delicate too. Even when she arrived, and was being entertained with the usual cup of tea, fears of her brother-in-law's robustness and unsympathetic ways had begun to overpower her. "I hope your papa does not ask too much from you, Lucilla," she said, as she sat in her easy-chair, and took her tea by the fire in the cosy room which had been prepared for her. "I hope he does not make you do too much, for I am sure you are not strong, my dear. Your poor mamma, you know----" and Mrs John looked with a certain pathos at her niece, as though she saw signs of evil in Lucilla's fresh complexion and substantial frame. "I am pretty well, thank you, Aunt Jemima," said Miss Marjoribanks, "and papa lets me do pretty much what I like: I am too old now, you know, to be told what to do." "Don't call yourself old, my dear," said Aunt Jemima, with a passing gleam of worldly wisdom--"one gets old quite soon enough. Are you subject to headaches, Lucilla, or pains in the limbs? Your poor mamma----" "Dear Aunt Jemima, I am as well as ever I can be," said Miss Marjoribanks. "Tell me when you heard from Tom, and what he is doing. Let me see, it is ten years since he went away. I used to write to him, but he did not answer my letters--not as he ought, you know. I suppose he has found friends among the Calcutta ladies," said Lucilla, with a slight but not unapparent sigh.