"I don't think that time will ever come to me, Aunt Faith; Hugh says the human mind is sufficient for itself." Aunt Faith sighed, and laid her hand gently on the young girl's dark curls. "My child," she said in a low voice, "I cannot bring myself to pray that you may learn the lesson of trust, for it is a very hard one. But I fear it will come to you, as, sooner or later, it comes to almost all of us." "Dear Aunt Faith," said the impulsive Bessie, throwing her arms around her aunt's neck, "of all your children, not one loves you more truly than I do!" "I believe you do, my child," said Aunt Faith, returning the caress. Arrayed in her ordinary dress, Bessie Darrell went down the back stairs and seated herself on the porch steps. In a few moments Hugh joined her. "Do you feel tired?" he asked. "Tired! No, indeed. Horseback riding never tired me. You will take me again to-morrow night?" "I think it is you that takes me, Brownie. Is Marr there?" "Yes; quoting poetry like everything. I heard him out of the front-hall window; something about 'a rosy cloud,' I believe." "Are they sitting directly under the hall window?" asked Hugh. "Yes; in two arm-chairs, side by side." "Let us go up and have a look at them," said Hugh. So up they stole, and took their places at the upper window. The old stone house was two stories high, with wings on each side, which projected out beyond the main building; the space enclosed by stone walls on three sides was floored with stone, and lofty stone pillars ran up to the overhanging room. There was no intersection at the second story, so that the view of the piazza from the upper windows was uninterrupted. It was a pleasant piazza, fronting towards the south, overlooking the old-fashioned garden with its little box-bordered paths, and entirely cut off from the lake winds, which are apt to have an easterly sharpness in them. On this piazza sat Sibyl and Graham Marr, and the two listeners above caught fragments of their poetical conversation. "I say, Bessie, do you know what a 'lambent waif' is?" whispered Hugh. "What a calf that Marr is! How can Sibyl listen to him? He has not common sense." "I believe he is to have uncommon cents, sometime," said Bessie, punning atrociously. "However, if my knowledge of Sibyl is worth anything, I should say she really prefers Mr. Leslie." "What, the minister!" exclaimed Hugh; "I am surprised. Not that I object at all, but ministers' wives sometimes have a hard life." "Gideon Fish says, that ministers' wives ought to be the happiest women on earth, because their husbands are always at home, brightening the domestic shrine with their presence," quoted Bessie, with a dramatic tone. "That is a fish-story; I know it by the sound. I say, Bessie, wouldn't it be fine fun to throw the great red blanket down on their heads in the middle of the next verse?"