Queenie stood with the sisters in the porch and watched them cross the tiny moat under the dark sycamores, Nan wrapt up in a grey rug, and seated comfortably in her little chair-saddle on the back of an old white pony, her white lamb still hugged in her arms, her father holding the reins, and mounted on a handsome brown mare. "Nan has found her voice now; do you hear how she is chattering to him, Langley?" observed Cathy in an amused voice. "How those two dote on each other! No wonder Gertrude is jealous, the child cares nothing for her mother; but then Gertrude is too selfish to make a fuss over any one but herself." "Hush, my dear; what a terribly sweeping assertion! Gertrude is an undemonstrative woman, one cannot tell how deeply she feels." "And Harry is a demonstrative man, and ought to have a wife who understands and makes much of him, instead of one who frets and teases him from morning to night. It is no good talking to me," continued Cathy, with a burst of vindictiveness rather surprising from its suddenness, "I detest that woman, with her slim figure and dark eyes, and little would-be elegancies. She to be Harry's wife and the mother of Nan! Why I would not trust a pet dog to her tender mercies and small tempers." "Cathy, all this is highly unnecessary," remonstrated her sister in a pained tone. Her face looked a little paler and sadder as she went back into the house after uttering her little protest. A child's white woollen glove lay on the carpet beside a stray sunbeam. Queenie, following her, saw as she stooped to pick it up that she touched it lightly with her lips before laying it aside in her work-basket. The next day was warm and bright, "regular Queen's weather," as Cathy chose to call it; and at the time appointed a merry little party assembled at the door of the Deer-hound, and filled the two little waggonettes. Garth had gone over to the Quarry, and left his brother as his deputy, and a playful dispute ensued between him and Captain Fawcett concerning the selection of the occupants of each waggonette. "The difficulty of suiting folk was truly awful," as Ted expressed it feelingly. Captain Fawcett had secured Langley and Miss Faith Palmer, and his wife and Miss Cosie had tucked in Emmie between them, just as Ted had slyly beckoned to the girls to favor him. Mr. Logan and Mr. Chester had followed, and Nan was carefully lifted in and placed beside her father. "Do you mean to say that mite of a child is going with us to the Quarry?" interposed Mrs. Fawcett, in genuine dismay. "What can her mother be thinking about?" "Hush! her father takes her everywhere with him," replied Langley softly; "she is out with him all day on the farm; she is never tired. I know he has often carried her for miles, or walked beside her pony."