Miss Latimer came into the parlour presently and found Lucy sitting in the gathering darkness. The old governess was a wise little woman, and instead of lighting the gas, she stirred the fire into a ruddy, dancing blaze. Then she called Hugh, and sent him in “to talk to mamma.” By-and-by she reappeared again, with the tea-tray and a delicious smell of toast. That recalled Lucy to her duties. She sprang up, protesting against Miss Latimer having gone to work by herself, and she lit the gas and closed the curtains. They had a cosy little meal, at which, for Hugh’s sake, not a word was said of the recent domestic catastrophe. When his mother took him off to bed, and heard him—though not without a significant pondering pause—join “Mrs. Morison’s” name in his prayer “for papa and mamma,” she remembered all Charlie had said to her, and felt that the child’s simple affection in its ignorance and blindness may reflect the heart of God more clearly than ours, blurred with inevitable criticisms and repulsions. When she had kissed him and was leaving the room, he called her back. “Mamma!” She turned at once, but he paused a moment. The child’s sensitive nature had realised the moral atmosphere about him sufficiently to feel that storms were there. “Mamma!” again. Then in a whisper, “Will Mrs. Morison come back to-morrow?” “No, my dear.” “Mamma, will she ever come back?” “I do not know, dear. I fear not. If she gets better I think she will.” “Is she ill, mamma?” “Yes, dear; her soul is very ill. We must be very sorry for her.” When she returned to the parlour Miss Latimer was sitting there. She had taken a sock from Lucy’s work-basket and was darning it. “Can you stay with me to-night, dear friend?” asked Mrs. Challoner. “Yes,” she said; “to-night and to-morrow night. Then I shall have to go home.” There was no need for inquiry why. Miss Latimer was virtually retired as a governess; but her tiny income sorely needed a supplement. She secured this by reading aloud for two hours every morning to a blind lady, whose house was not far from her lodgings, though a long way from the Challoners’. The Christmas holidays, which had brought relatives to visit her blind patroness, had set her free for three days. “It is terribly hard that the few holidays of your industrious life should be wasted as these have been,” remarked Lucy. Miss Latimer laughed. She was a quaint little body, with a flashing of energy about her which imparted something youthful to her sixty years. “As it was bound to happen at all, my dear,” she said, “I am glad it happened in my holidays, so that I have been free to be a little helpful. Make the most of me while you have me. What step are you going to take next?”