There was a note in Cicely’s voice new to it. Jeanette instantly pounced upon her. “Lonely, Cis? Not perfectly happy? These past days made things harder? They’ve been cruelly hard in themselves, I’m sure of that!” Cis swung around to face her. “It’s not that I still want Rod; don’t think that!” she cried. “I knew I didn’t, but I know it better now. These days were hard, but they were a comfort, too. I’m not lonely, not exactly; perhaps, a little. I don’t know what I want. I miss Miss Braithwaite, my life with her. Perfectly happy? I’m twenty-three; the ‘first fine careless rapture’ is over then, I suppose. I want a place to fill; I want a work to do that will take every bit of me to do it.” Cis quoting Browning? Cis half pensive, unsatisfied? Jeanette wondered. “Poor Cicely! I suspect if we put a dynamo to grinding coffee it would find the grains small and the dust they made too trivial!” Jeanette said. “But you take my engagement coolly! Aren’t you amazed?” “I’m wholly amazed and surprised, and I take it less coolly than you think,” declared Cis. “It has rather bowled me over. I suppose I dread to have you married. Where shall you live, Jeanette, dear?” “In Beaconhite. Paul is going into literary work there; he says I shall help him. And he is going to teach Greek and Latin in that big boys’ school on the outskirts of the city--Graycliff Hall--and he’ll probably lecture. It will be Beaconhite,” Jeanette answered. Cis’s face had brightened as she listened. “I know I’m going back there, somehow,” she declared. “That’s good news that you’ll be within reach. I’m hungry for Beaconhite.” “Uncle Wilmer is ready for you at any moment, whoever he has as his secretary,” Jeanette assured her. “He told me that he would pension his secretary, if he must, and would have you back any day you’d come. He will be received into the Church at Pentecost, Cis; Father Morley will receive him, as he did father, and father will make a point of being here in time for the ceremony.” “Was there a secret about your father’s going away; ought I ask?” hinted Cis. “He was seriously ill. We told no one, lest mother hear of it; things have such a way of leaking, unexplainably! He was supposed to be travelling on matters connected with important affairs of business. He has been in a sanitarium. He is cured, thank God! Even now don’t speak of this, Cis. Miss Gallatin knows, hardly anyone else. Hannah Gallatin is a great woman!” Jeanette ended with tears of gratitude and relief in her eyes. “I never see her, lately; I wish I might,” said Cis. “I believe she could set me up again with my old sensible way of taking things!” “She’s not here now. I’ll tell her you need her for a--what do they call it?--a pick-me-up?” Jeanette laughed.