"He can't have been prepared either," said Donald, "or he'd never have brought all those traps with him--gun-cases and fishing-tackle and tennis-rackets and no end of things. By Jove, much use he'll find for them at Angry!" "We must only hope that his visit will be a short one," said Aline, with one of her gentle sighs. I am sure this strange boy interests her because she sees in every boy something of Pierce, something, too, of Hugh and Donald. Ah! well, we Brandons, despite short commons and no money, have had as happy a childhood as children ever had. I know Mother left us to Aline, and well has Aline kept trust with her. She will not need to look away when they meet one day in heaven. CHAPTER VII. A TRUE WORD SPOKEN IN JEST. To-day Esther and I were sitting with Aline in her room. It was bitterly cold, though fine and sunny. I should have liked to be out with the twins, whom I could see in the garden below tramping up and down steadily, hand in hand. They are growing up as wild and shy as a little pair of rabbits, and they are quite safe to keep to the gardens once Aline has told them there was a fear of their meeting the hunt if they went out to the park or the woods. They fear nothing except the eyes of strangers. It makes us laugh to know that they who would face Lord Aranmore's tallest stag, or the little wild, horned, mountain cattle, will turn round and run, still hand in hand, if they should happen to see a well-dressed stranger approaching them. I had promised to help Aline with some baby-clothes she was making for poor Mary Kennedy, whose husband was killed by a falling tree in the summer, and whose first baby was born the other day, else I too should have been out-of-doors, though I am not brisk in getting about; and Esther, who takes care that I am never left behind, nor made to feel a drag on the pleasure of the others, would have been with me. The things we are sewing at are made out of clothes we ourselves had when we were little. They are fine, dainty little garments, and smell sweetly of lavender. It almost breaks Oona's heart that Aline will use them for the children of the poor. She says that coarse stuffs would be far better, and perhaps she is right, but we have no money to purchase the coarse stuffs if we would. Oona never argues with Aline about it, but gives up the keys of the drawers that contain the treasures, without words indeed, but with sighs as from a breaking heart. Aline, for all her gentleness, makes even Oona feel that she is mistress.