"Miss Holbrook--I am equally confident!" I said. "I am sorry to be late, but Father Stoddard's message was delayed." "You are kind to respond at all," she said, her wonderful eyes upon me; "but Father Stoddard said you would not fail me." "He is a man of great faith! But I have a trap waiting. We can talk more comfortably at St. Agatha's." "Yes; we are to go to the school. Father Stoddard kindly arranged it. It is quite secluded, he assured me." "You will not be disappointed, Miss Holbrook, if seclusion is what you seek." I picked up the brown bag and turned away, but she waited and glanced about. Her "we" had puzzled me; perhaps she had brought a maid, and I followed her glance toward the window of the telegraph office. "Oh, Helen; my niece, Helen Holbrook, is with me. I wished to wire some instructions to my housekeeper at home. Father Stoddard may not have explained--that it is partly on Helen's account that I am coming here." "No; he explained nothing--merely gave me my instructions," I laughed. "He gives orders in a most militant fashion." In a moment I had been presented to the niece, and had noted that she was considerably above her aunt's height; that she was dark, with eyes that seemed quite black in certain lights, and that she bowed, as her aunt presented me, without offering her hand, and murmured my name in a voice musical, deep and full, and agreeable to hear. She took their checks from her purse, and I called the porter and arranged for the transfer of their luggage to St. Agatha's. We were soon in the trap with the bays carrying us at a lively clip along the lake road. It was all perfectly new to them and they expressed their delight in the freshness of the young foliage; the billowing fields of ripening wheat, the wild rose, blackberry and elderberry filling the angles of the stake-and-rider fences, and the flashing waters of the lake that carried the eye to distant wooded shores. I turned in my seat by the driver to answer their questions. "There's a summer resort somewhere on the lake; how far is that from the school?" asked the girl. "That's Port Annandale. It's two or three miles from St. Agatha's," I replied. "On this side and all the way to the school there are farms. The lake looks like an oval pond as we see it here, but there are several long arms that creep off into the woods, and there's another lake of considerable size to the north. Port Annandale lies yonder." "Of course we shall see nothing of it," said the younger Miss Holbrook with finality. I sought in vain for any resemblance between the two women; they were utterly unlike. The little brown lady was interested and responsive enough; she turned toward her niece with undisguised affection as we talked, but I caught several times a look of unhappiness in her face, and the brow that Time had not touched gathered in lines of anxiety and care. The girl's manner toward her aunt was wholly kind and sympathetic.