As for Cicely, she had not the slightest notion that any one thought of her so, or thought of her at all, and sometimes as the excitement of the beginning died away she felt her life a weary business enough. No society but little Harry, who always wanted his tea, and Charley, with his thumb in his mouth; and those long hours with the crowd of little girls around her, who were not amusing to have all day long as they used to be for an hour now and then, when the clergyman's daughter went in among them, received by the schoolmistress curtsying, and with smiles and bobs by the children, and carrying a pleasant excitement with her. How Mab and she had laughed many a day over the funny answers and funnier questions; but they were not funny now. When Mab came down, now and then, from Saturday to Monday, with all her eager communications about her work, Cicely remembered that she too was a girl, and they were happy enough; but in the long dull level of the days after Mab had gone she used to think to herself that she must be a widow without knowing it, left after all the bloom of life was over with her children to work for. "But even that would be better," Cicely said to herself; "for then, at least, I should be silly about the children, and think them angels, and adore them." Even that consolation did not exist for her. Mab was working very hard, and there had dawned upon her a glorious prospect, not yet come to anything, but which might mean the height of good fortune. Do not let the reader think less well of Mab because this was not the highest branch of art which she was contemplating. It was not that she hoped at eighteen and a half to send some great picture to the Academy, which should be hung on the line, and at once take the world by storm. What she thought of was the homelier path of illustrations. "If, perhaps, one was to take a little trouble, and try to find out what the book means, and how the author saw a scene," Mab said; "they don't do that in the illustrations one sees: the author says one thing, the artist quite another--that, I suppose, is because the artist is a great person and does not mind. But I am nobody. I should try to make out what the reading meant, and follow that." This was her hope, and whether she succeeds or not, and though she called a book "the reading," those who write will be grateful to the young artist for this thought. "Remember I am the brother and you are the sister," cried Mab. It was on the way to the station on a Sunday evening--for both of the girls had to begin work early next morning--that this was said. "And as soon as I make money enough you are to come and keep my house." Cicely kissed her, and went through the usual process of looking for a woman who was going all the way to London in one of the carriages. This was not very like the brother theory, but Mab was docile as a child. And then the elder sister walked home through the spring darkness with her heart full, wondering