"Is that all?" said Mrs Barclay in a disappointed tone. "Why, I was in hopes that you were over head and ears in trouble, and had come to me for help." "Mrs Barclay!" exclaimed Claire. "No, no, no, my dear. What a stupid old woman I am! I didn't mean that, but if you were in trouble, I hoped that, seeing how much you are alone, you had come to me for help and advice." Claire's face worked and her lips quivered. She vainly tried to speak, and finally, utterly broken-down with the agony of her encounters on the previous day with Louis and her sister, with the following sleepless night and the despair of the present day, during which she had been vainly striving to see some way out of the difficulty, she threw herself upon the breast offered to receive her troubles and sobbed aloud. "I knew--I knew," whispered Mrs Barclay, soothing and caressing the poor girl by turns. "I knew as well as if some one had told me that you were in trouble and wanted help. There, there, cry away, my darling. Have a good long patient one, and don't hurry yourself. You'll be a world better afterwards; and if you like then to tell me about it, why, you see, you can, and if you don't like to, why, there's no harm done." Even if the amiable plump old soul had said nothing more than the first sympathising words, Claire's emotion, so long pent up, would now have had its vent, the tears seeming to relieve her overburdened brain as she clung to her hostess, listening, and yet only half hearing her whispered words. It was perhaps as well, for with all its true-heartedness there was a comic side to Mrs Barclay's well-meant sympathy; and some of her adjurations to "cry away," and not to "stop it," and the like, would have provoked a smile from anyone who had been present at the scene. "There, there, there, then, that's better," cried Mrs Barclay, beaming in Claire's face and kissing her tenderly. "Now you'll be comfortable again; and now, my dear child, we're all alone, and if you like to make a confidant of me, you shall find you can trust me as much as my Jo-si-ah can. But don't you think I'm a scandal-loving old busybody, my dear, for I don't ask you to tell me anything." "You are always so good to me, Mrs Barclay," sighed Claire, clinging to the ample breast. "Oh, nonsense, my dear. I only offer to be your confidant, so as to help you in your trouble. For you are in trouble, my dear--dreadful trouble, and it hurts me to see you so--hurts me, my dear, more than you think for, so what I say is--If it does you good to come and sit with me and be comforted by having a good cry over me, just as if you were my little girl, why you shall, and I shan't ask you a single question; but if you think such a silly stout old woman can do you any good by giving you advice, or--now don't be offended--finding you money; or by asking my Jo-si-ah what to do--" "Mrs Barclay!" cried Claire in tones of dismay, and with her cheeks flushing.