"I wonder how women of thirty-five feel under these circumstances," thought Cathy, as she followed the others up the narrow dark staircase leading to Miss Cosie's neat sanctum. "I should have imagined all sentiment would have been worried out of them by this time, in this dismal old mill-pond they call life. It is very odd, but it is amusing too," she continued, with a certain girlish curiosity at the elderly romance that was impending before her eyes. After all it was not without its pathos. "Perhaps he will not recognize her when they meet, or most likely he has a wife and two or three children somewhere; I would not answer for him. It is the women who are faithful in these cases. In my opinion Jacob is the exception, not the rule. Poor old Jacob, how threadbare they have worn him! He was very patient and deep, but I liked Esau best." Cathy mused on in her rambling fashion. Now and then she and Queenie exchanged glances full of meaning. "Is it--can it really be he?" whispered Queenie, as she tied and untied Cathy's velvet. "Not a doubt of it," replied the other. "Hush! we shall hear more by-and-bye." Miss Faith looked at them both with soft dazed eyes. She had no idea that they were talking of her. "Angus Stewart! there cannot be two of that name," she said to herself, as she smoothed out her ruffles with trembling hands, and tried to adjust her pearl brooch to her liking. "I wonder when I shall see him, and if he will know me again." But here Miss Cosie rushed upon them with a small whirlwind of interjections and exclamations. "Oh, my dears; there, there, you all look as fresh as rosebuds. What do you think? The most wonderful thing has happened. Just fancy Christopher taking it into his head to bring him here!" "To bring whom, dear Miss Cosie?" asked Cathy quickly, for Miss Faith's color was varying dangerously. "Why, Mr. Mac'ivor, or what's his name--something Scotch I am sure. The new doctor, I mean. And there they are talking as comfortably as though they had known each other for years, instead of minutes. Christopher has taken him over to the church already.' "If Mr. Stewart be here we had better go down," observed Cathy, demurely, but her eyes danced with fun. "Ah, Stewart, of course. There, there, my dear, my head is like a sieve, as Kit always tells me. 'Why, Charlotte, there must be a hole in your brain somewhere,' as he often says. And there he is, dear fellow, looking as pleased as though he had got some one to his liking; and indeed he seems a pleasant, sociable sort of person." "Yes; but your tea will be spoiled if we stand talking any longer," put in artful Cathy; and Miss Cosie took the hint, and trotted off in her velvet high-heeled slippers, looking like a little grey mouse of a woman, in her dove-colored gown and soft Shetland shawl. "There, there, my dear, if I had not forgotten all about the tea!" they could hear her exclaim. as she whisked down the passage.