“Who can that be?” exclaimed Mary, laying down her work and glancing at the clock on the mantel; “half-past nine, and we never have any callers of evenings. There,” returning to her work at the sound of the opening and shutting of a door, followed by footsteps hastily descending the stairs, “Katty’s gone to answer it.” The next minute Floy felt a light tap on her shoulder, and looked up to find Hetty’s bright, cheery face bending over her. “Ah, I’ve surprised you! Thought I should. Hope the shock will be good for your nerves,” Hetty said, laughing in a pleased, kindly way at Floy’s start and joyous exclamation: “Oh! is it you? how glad I am!” “Yes; John and I have come to take you home.” “John?” “One of Aunt Prue’s boys. The children have come home for the holidays--but wouldn’t Araminta take my head off if she heard me say that! She’s the youngest, has arrived at the mature age of fifteen, and considers herself wiser than her parents or ‘than ten men that can render a reason.’ Come, put on your things, my dear.” “I wish I could, but I have engaged to finish this to-night, and there’s a full hour’s work on it yet.” “Not if I help,” said Hetty, pulling off her gloves and taking a thimble from her pocket. “I’ll call master John up and give him a book. You see I came prepared for emergencies.” “He won’t like it, will he?” “He’s a dear good fellow, and would do more than that for me; or for you when he knows you.” CHAPTER XXIII. OLD FRIENDS AND NEW. “All things, friendship excepted, Are subject to fortune.”--LILLY. The hands on the dial-plate of the clock pointed to quarter-past ten as Hetty’s nimble fingers set the last stitch in the gown and Floy drew on her gloves, having already donned hat and cloak in obedience to orders. “Done!” cried Hetty, putting her needle in the cushion and her thimble into her pocket. “Now, John, make way with these few basting threads while I put on my duds, there’s a good soul!” John--a well-grown lad of seventeen, in looks a happy mixture of father and mother, in character an improvement upon both, having his mother’s energy without her hardness and closeness--laid down the paper he had been reading, and with the smiling rejoinder, “Pretty work to set a man at, Het!” was about to comply with her request when Mary, coming in from her mistress’s bedroom, her hands full of packages, interposed: “Oh, never mind them! I’ll have them all out in the morning before the Madame’s up. Here, Miss Goodenough, Miss Kemper, and Mr. John, she charged me to give you each one of these. They’re boxes of fine candies. She always lays in a great store of them about Christmas.” “Ah, ha!” cried John as the street-door closed on him and his companions, “won’t I have the laugh on Lu to-night, Het? He’d never have let me be your gallant if he’d thought there was a box of candy to be won by it.” “A good thing he didn’t; he’ll manage as it is to get enough to make himself sick,” she returned somewhat scornfully.