"It is not a great fortune," wrote Garth, "it is something less than two or three thousand pounds; but it has quite replaced my unfortunate Bank loss. We are all more thankful than we can say. It makes me especially happy, because I can now repay you the loan you have so generously advanced to me without any further delay. As I am anxious to settle this matter at once, I shall be glad if you will let me know into whose hands I am to pay the money." And then followed a few kind enquiries after her and Emmie. Poor Queenie, her answer was very stiff and cold. "How pleased he is to be quit of his obligation to me. How the thought of this debt has galled and harassed him," she thought, as she slowly and laboriously penned those few words. Garth's face grew puzzled and pained as he read them. It is not always easy to read between the lines. But as the summer wore on Queenie grew graver and sadder, for even to her loving eyes Emmie was slowly but surely fading away. The change had come on imperceptibly: first the drives in the pony-carriage were discontinued, then the Bath-chair was found too fatiguing; by-and-bye Queenie lifted the child's light form and carried it morning after morning to the couch in the bay-window. There was no question of even walking from one room to another. At the smallest exertion there were long fainting fits that drove Queenie almost frantic with alarm. "Oh, if only Langley or Cathy could be with me now!" was her one wish. But, alas! there was no hope of this. She knew there was a troubled household at Church-Stile House. Langley was ill, and Cathy had been summoned home to tend her sister. The long nursing at Karldale Grange had broken down her strength, and as soon as Gertrude Chester had drawn her last breath there had been a sudden collapse that had alarmed her brother. "She was slightly better, but in a frightfully weak state," Cathy wrote, "and likely to remain so for some time, Dr. Stewart said, and so there was nothing for it but for her to relinquish her hospital work and come home." "Dr. Stewart calls us the model nurse and patient; and, indeed, Langley is such a patient creature that it is a pleasure to fend for her, as folk say," Cathy wrote. "Poor old Garth took her illness sadly to heart, but after Dr. Stewart's last visit he has seemed more cheerful; and so, you see, why you must do without your Church-Stile House friend, my dear Queenie, though I am longing from morning to night for a peep at you and Emmie." Queenie kept the contents of this letter to herself; it would never do to harass the child's mind with any fresh anxiety, so she answered all her questions cheerfully, though with some necessary evasion. "Cathy had gone home, and Langley was overtired and far from strong," that was all she told her. For Emmie's spirits were drooping with her strength. All manner of anxious thoughts seemed brooding in the childish brain.