Queenie fell in love with Miss Faith on the spot, as she told Cathy afterwards. Young as she was, she knew far more of the world than this woman of thirty-five. The unsophisticated freshness of the simple woman, her tender voice, her old-fashioned ways, and little quaint pedanteries, charmed the young governess, grown bitter with the hard edge of life. Before the day was out she learnt a good deal about "the Sisterhood," as Garth and Cathy always called the Evergreens, where the Palmers lived. The eldest sister, Hope, was cosmopolitan in her charities,--knitted woollen jugs and socks for the missionary boxes of half the neighbourhood, was a strong advocate of the temperance movement, and was a little shaky in her church principles, having, as her sisters well knew, a decided leaning to the society of the Plymouth Sisters. The second sister, Prudence, managed the household, and divided her time between her store-room and her district. "I am not as clever as the others; but I wait on Charity," said Miss Faith, with an unconscious pathos in her voice. "'Faith waiting on Charity.' Poor cardinal virtues," thought the girl, with a little smile of amusement over the odd play of words. "I suppose Faith has plenty of waiting and looking up in this world. To judge by some women's lives, some must wait for ever," soliloquized the young philosopher with a sigh. She speculated for a short time on this Charity, who had been handsomer than any of them, and had met with an accident in her youth, whose view was bounded by four walls, and who lived in her books. "My dear Miss Marriott, Cara is so clever. You should hear her talk. She and Mr. Logan have such interesting conversation; it is quite wonderful to hear them. What a blessing it is to have a well-stored mind; no empty space for discontent to creep in, as Cara says. I often wish I were clever," continued the simple woman, "and then one would not need to perplex one's self so about the meanings of things. Life never seems such a puzzle to Cara as it does to me." But here Cathy, who had overheard the last sentences, interrupted her scornfully. "Do you call it life?" curling her lip scornfully. "Are such meagre existences really life? Life pre-supposes movement, animation, sensation, coloring, plenty of work, but above all, movement; not sitting in a close room, putting in patches and listening to chapters of Physical Geography. Every one knows you are a saint, Miss Faith," continued Cathy, enthusiastically. "I know Garth thinks so. But, all the same, life means a little more than patches and dissertations on the Gulf Stream." "You young things are so impetuous," returned poor Miss Faith with a tremulous smile; "perhaps at your age one may have felt the same. There is a sort of fever in young blood, I think. I remember how we used to feel in the spring-time; it made one's pulses beat faster only to hear the birds singing in their little new nests."