“You may go to the study if you please Huntley--my father will be glad to see you,” said the young mistress of the manse, once more drawing Johnnie’s sock over her hand after she had welcomed her visitor. Huntley did not avail himself of the privilege so soon as he might have done, considering that he had come with the intention of asking advice from the minister. It was pleasant to sit down in that quiet, bright, home-like room, which looked as though nothing could disturb its cheerful composure, and see that careful little woman among her family labors, so fresh, and bright, and young, yet so perfectly in her place among these pleasant cares. Huntley, whose mind was in a tumult of unaccustomed anxieties, and who felt himself oppressed with a burden of responsibility, and the new necessity of deciding for himself, sank into a chair opposite Katie, with a sensation of rest and relief which he had not felt for weeks before. She looked up to him brightly with those smiling brown eyes which were so young and yet so full of elder-sisterly thoughtfulness. She saw in a moment the shadow on Huntley’s face, and proceeded to minister to it as if it had been a cloud upon the boyish horizon of one of her own young brothers. Katie could not help being half maternal even to Huntley. “Something ails you,” said the little woman--“are you tired, Huntley? Oh, I mind when grief was here, what hard, hard work it was keeping up a smile. Never mind me; look sorrowful, if you like, and take a rest. It makes me think how I felt myself when dear mamma died, to see you keeping up a face like that.” “Oh, Katie, I wish we had you at Norlaw!” cried the lad, with sudden earnestness. “Yes,” said Katie, simply, “if you had only had a sister, Huntley!--but Mrs. Livingstone does not care for strangers. And mothers are sometimes fondest of their sons--everybody says so; but I know you’re the eldest, and every thing comes on you.” “Patie is the wisest,” said Huntley, with a momentary smile; “I think he could manage better without me--and, Katie, I’ll have to go away.” She looked up at him with a question in her eyes. She asked nothing audibly, but merely suspended her work, and turned, with a friendly anxiety, her steady, kind gaze upon Huntley’s face. The young man was not “in love"--he was still too familiar with this sisterly face, and too much occupied with all the sudden troubles in which he had himself been plunged, to think of any such thing; but, unconsciously, Huntley paused before answering--paused to take the peaceful scene, the home apartment, the bright serious eyes into his memory, a picture of strange influence and tenderness never to fade. “I thought of going to Australia,” he said; “they say a man with a will to work and some knowledge, especially of cattle, is sure to thrive there. It matters but little, I think, Katie, whether I’m a hundred or a thousand miles away, so long as I _am_ away; and I think the best place for me is there.”