"Make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it will out at the casement; shut that, and 'twill out of the keyhole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out of the chimney."--_Shakespeare._ It was a mild day in February, and as Queenie closed the door of the little school-house, and walked up the field that led to the vicarage, it seemed to her as though the very air held a promise of spring. Now Queenie, like all healthy young creatures, dearly loved the spring-time; to her imaginative temperament there could be nothing more beautiful and satisfying than to watch this spectacle of a faded and dead nature rising again into fresh life. "How can people say there is no hereafter, when the miracle of the resurrection is every year repeated before our eyes?" she said to herself. To her there was ever a fresh pleasure in seeing the brown, lifeless limbs of the elms and sycamores gradually clothe themselves, first with budding shoots, and then with fair, green leaves. The bursting hedgerows, the unfolding of the fronds of ferns, the first peep of the fairy white bells of snowdrops, the pale glitter of primroses, and the fragrance of violets, gave her a positive feeling of happiness. Everything so new, so fresh, so fair, soiled by no dust, scorched by no burning sunshine; the whole world bright and unsullied as a baby soul, to whom good and evil are unknown mysteries, and life means nothing but perpetual satisfaction and content. Queenie had a little errand to fulfil at the vicarage; one of her scholars was ill, and she wanted Miss Cosie's recipe for a certain compound that Miss Cosie judged to be highly efficacious in such cases. She entered the little parlor with her usual light step. Miss Cosie was engaged in her favorite occupation--knitting socks for her brother. She put down her work with a little flurry when she caught sight of her visitor. "There, there," exclaimed the little woman, turning very red, "Christopher was right, as he always is, dear old fellow; and of course you've come to scold me." "To scold you, dear Miss Cosie!" "Dear, dear, to think of my poor head getting into such a muddle, and the words slipping out before I knew they were coming. Why, I could have bitten my troublesome tongue I was so vexed with myself; but what was the use of crying over spilt milk, as my poor mother used to say, and a secret is sure to be proclaimed on the house-top some time or other, as I told Mr. Garth." "Now, Miss Cosie, what does this mean?" asked Queenie, conscious of an uncomfortable sensation creeping over her; little Janie's sore throat was quite forgotten. "Do you mean that, after all my entreaties and warnings, you have betrayed me?" "There, there, perhaps it is not so bad as you think," returned Miss Cosie, patting her curls nervously, and prefacing her words with a gentle cough; "it was only just a sentence or two that I let drop to Mr. Garth when he came in here last night for a pleasant chat with Christopher and me."