Ah, were Espy and her dear unknown mother among the number? What a throb of fear and pain came with that thought! But she put it resolutely aside. She would hope for the best, and--there was One who knew where each of these loved ones was, and who was able to take care of them. To His kind keeping she would commit both them and herself, and go to her rest with the peaceful, confiding trust of a little child. “Ah, little one, how did you rest?” was Madame Le Conte’s morning salutation. “Delightfully, auntie; dropped asleep the instant my head touched the pillow, and knew no more till I woke to find the sun shining in at the windows. And you? how did you rest?” “Very little,” the Madame sighed, shaking her head sadly; “my asthma was worse than usual, and would scarcely allow me to lie down.” “I am so sorry! But you are better?” “Yes; the attack has passed.” The tempest was over, the day still, calm, and bright, but intensely cold, and the streets were so blocked up by a heavy fall of snow that going out was not to be thought of; nor were they likely to be troubled with callers. “We shall have the day to ourselves,” the Madame remarked as they left the breakfast-table, “and if you will invite me into your boudoir, Pansy, we will pass the morning there for variety.” “I shall be delighted to entertain and wait upon you, Aunt Nannette,” Ethel answered, with a smile. She was looking very lovely in a pretty morning dress of crimson cashmere, edged at neck and sleeves with ruches of soft, rich lace. Having seen her aunt comfortably established in an easy chair, Ethel took possession of a low rocker near her side, and employing her busy fingers with some fancy work--a shawl of soft white zephyr which she was crocheting for Hetty--waited with outward composure, but inward impatience, for the fulfilment of yesterday’s promise. The Madame sat with her hands folded in her lap, her eyes gazing into vacancy, her breathing somewhat labored, her thoughts evidently far away. To Ethel’s eager expectance it seemed a long time that she sat thus, but at length she began, in a low, even tone, much as if she were reading aloud, and with eyes still looking straight before her: “I was eight years older than my sister Ethel, my little Pansy. There had been others, but they all died in infancy, and we two were the only ones left when our parents were taken. That was when Ethel was fourteen and I twenty-two. “I tried to be a mother to her. I was very fond of her, yet now I can see that I always cared more for my own happiness than for hers--always wanted to be first, and to rule her.