The night was melancholy. When the outer world was shut out, and the gas was lighted, and the two women sat down to work and talk, nothing seemed to Minola quite as it had been. The evident happiness and passing high spirits of the little poetess oppressed her. Mary Blanchet was so glad to be making acquaintances, and to have some prospect of seeing the inside of a London home. Then Minola's kindlier nature returned to her, and she thought of Mary's delight at seeing her brother, and how unkind it would be if she, Minola, did not try to enter into her feelings. Her mind went back to her own brother, to their dear early companionship, when nothing seemed more natural and more certain than that they two should walk the world arm-in-arm. Now all that had come to an end--faded away somehow; and he had gone into the world on his own account, and made other ties, and forgotten her. But if he were even now to come back, if she were to hear in the street the sound of the peculiar whistle with which he always announced his coming to her--oh, how, in spite of all his forgetfulness and her anger, she would run to him and throw her arms around his neck! Why should not Mary Blanchet love her brother, and gladden when he came? "What is your brother like, Mary, dear?" she said gently, anxious to propitiate by voluntarily entering on the topic dearest to her friend. "Oh, very handsome--very, very handsome!" Miss Grey smiled in spite of herself. "Now, Minola, I know what you are smiling at; you think it is my sisterly nonsense, and all that; but wait until you see." "I'll wait," Minola said.