"Yes, I think it will be as pleasant in the parlor," said Missy, giving her arm to Miss Varian, and going forward with a firm step. She installed her companion in an easy chair, seated herself, and read aloud the evening paper. Politics, fashions, marriages, and deaths, what a senseless jumble they made in her mind. She was often called sharply to account for betraying the jumble in her tone, for Miss Varian had recovered herself enough to feel an interest in the paper, while she felt sure she should have no tidings of St. John's trouble that night. It was easy to see nothing would be told her till it was officially discussed, with Missy in council, and till it was decided how much and what she was to hear. So she resolved to revenge herself by keeping Missy out of it as long as she could. The paper, to the last personal, had to be read. And then she found it necessary to have two or three notes written. Goneril was no scribe, so Missy was always expected to write her notes for her, which she always did, filled with a proud consciousness of being pretty good to do it, for somebody who wasn't her aunt, and who was her enemy. Aunt Harriet had always a good many notes to write; she never could get over the habit of wanting things her own way, and to have your own way, even about the covering of a footstool, requires sometimes the writing of a good many little notes; the looking up of a good many addresses, the putting on of a good many stamps, the sending a good many times to the post-office. All these things Missy generally did with outward precision and perfection. But to-night her hand shook, her mind wandered, she made mighty errors, and blotted and crossed out and misdirected like an ordinary mortal in a state of agitation. It was not lost upon Miss Varian, who heard the pen scratching through a dozen words at a time. "Anything but an erasure in writing to such a person as Mrs. Olor, and particularly about a matter such as this. If you can't put your mind on it to-night, I'd rather you'd leave it till to-morrow." "I haven't found any difficulty in putting my mind on it," said Missy. "If you could give me a lucid sentence, I think I could write it out. I believe I have done it before." So she tore up the letter, her cheeks burning, and began a fresh one. All this time she listened for the sounds overhead. Sometimes it would be silent, of course they could not hear the sound of voices--sometimes for five minutes together there would be the sound of St. John's tread as he walked backward and forward the length of the room. Eleven o'clock came. "I am going to bed," said Missy, pushing away the writing things. "I will finish your business in the morning. Shall I ring for Goneril?"