"A few days such as this would make us all old," said Missy, with a sigh, leaning her face down on her mother's arm. "Mamma, I am sure this interview is very painful to St. John. I am sure he has been charged with something to say to her husband, _by that poor soul_. How I wish it weren't wrong to ask him what it was. But,"--with a sigh--"I suppose we shall never know." "Never, Missy. But we can be charitable. And when you are my age, my child, you will be afraid to judge any one, and will distrust the sight of your own eyes." At this moment Miss Varian came lumbering into the room, leaning on the arm of Goneril. "I suppose," she said, not hearing the low voices, "that Missy is at her nursery duties yet. Are you here, Dorla? I should think she might remember that you might sometimes be a little lonely, while she is busy in her new vocation." Missy scorned to answer, but her mother said pleasantly: "Oh, she is here; her babies have been asleep some time." "I'm not surprised. I don't believe Gabby's grief has kept her awake. That child has a heart like a pebble, small and hard. As to little Jay, he has the constitution and the endowments of a rat terrier, nothing beyond. I don't believe he ever will amount to anything more than a good, sturdy little animal." "He will amount to a big animal, I suppose, if he lives long enough," said Missy, with a sharp intonation of contempt. "Well, not very, if he copies his father. Gabby has all the cleverness. I should call Jay a dull child, as far as I can judge; dull of intellect, but so strong and well that it gives him a certain force." "Aunt Harriet!" cried Missy, impatiently, "can't you leave even children alone? What have those poor little morsels done to you, that you should defame them so?" "Done? Oh, nothing, but waked me up from my nap this afternoon. And, you know, deprived me and your mother of much of your soothing society for the past two months." "I haven't begrudged Missy to them," said her mother, affectionately, drawing Missy's hand around her neck in the dimness. "I think the poor little things have needed a friend for a long while, and, alas, they need one now." "It's my impression they're no worse off to-day than they were yesterday. There is such a thing as gaining by a loss." Mrs. Varian put her hand over Missy's mouth; Miss Varian, annoyed by not being answered, went on with added sharpness: "Goneril says the servants tell her all sorts of stories about the state of things between master and mistress in the house next door. I am afraid the poor man isn't to blame for snubbing her as he has done. They say she--"