"I am very glad," returned Garth, gravely; but he questioned her no more. Possibly he expected her further confidence, and was a little disappointed when she withheld it. Neither on that evening nor on any further occasion did he revert to the subject; and Queenie, who began to feel her position an embarrassing one, was glad that the whole matter should be consigned to oblivion. Cathy's curiosity was much more easily satisfied. "There, my dream has come true," she said, embracing her ecstatically when they had retired to their own rooms. "Why did you not write and tell me about it? Will you have much, Queen--a whole hundred a-year?" "Yes; I shall have a hundred a-year," returned Queenie, trying not to laugh. When she was away from those keen grey eyes she felt something like a renewal of courage. Her spirits returned; the whole thing appeared to her in the light of a good joke. "When it comes out, and he asks me the reason of this mystery, I know what I shall tell him," she thought, when Cathy had withdrawn, well pleased, and she was left alone for the night. "I shall tell him that I wanted to remain poor a little longer, and to be liked for myself; that I feared losing the school and the cottage; that it was an innocent whim that could do no one harm, and that would give me a great deal of pleasure," and when she had settled this point comfortably with herself she composed herself to sleep. CHAPTER VII. WEAVING IN THE SUNSET. "Where waitest thou, Lady I am to love? Thou comest not; Thou knowest of my sad and lonely lot; I look'd for thee ere now! "It is the May! And each sweet sister soul hath found its brother; Only we two seek fondly each the other, And, seeking, still delay."--_Arnold._ Queenie entered upon her new duties with an ardor that would have surprised any one acquainted with the real state of the case. If a feeling of amusement sometimes crossed her mind at the incongruity between her present position and the heiress-ship she had refused to take up, it only added zest and flavor to her work. Queenie Marriott was one of those women whose zeal was according to knowledge. She loved her work for its own sake. In her eyes it was invested with a meaning and dignity that redeemed it from its so-called drudgery, and placed it high in the ranks of honorable labor. Her youthful enthusiasm anointed everything with a sort of moral chrism. The little barnlike structure, with its half-moon windows, and rough forms and desks, was a species of temple wherein she enshrined all manner of precious things. When she looked round on the children's faces they seemed to appeal to her with all sorts of involved meanings, demanding patience and sympathy, and all such goodly things at her hands.