This suggestion, it need scarcely be said, struck Winifred with dismay. The face, no longer weeping, no longer elevated by the passionate earnestness of the first appeal, dropping to calculations which, perhaps, were more congenial to its nature, gave her a chill of repulsion while still her heart was soft. She seemed to see, with a curious second sight, the scene of family life, of family tragedy, which might ensue were this impossible plan attempted. It was with difficulty that she stopped Mrs. George, who, in the heat of success, would have settled all the details at once, and it was only the entrance of Miss Farrell, tenderly anxious about her pupil’s health, and astounded to find Mrs. George and her child established in her room, that finally delivered poor Winnie. “You would have no need of strangers eating you up if you had us,” her sister-in-law said, as she stooped to kiss her ostentatiously, and held the child up to repeat the salute ere she went away. Winifred had kissed the young mother almost with emotion in the midst of her pleading; but somehow this return of the embrace gave a slight shock both to her delicacy and pride. She laughed a little and coloured when Miss Farrell, after the door closed, looked at her astonished. “You think I have grown into wonderful intimacy with Mrs. George?” she said. “I do indeed, Winnie. My dear, I would not interfere, but you must not let your kind heart carry you too far.” “Oh, my kind heart!” cried the girl, feeling a desperate irony in the words. “She suggests that they should live with me,” she added, turning her head away. “Live with you? Winnie! my dear!” Miss Farrell gasped, with a sharp break between each word. “She thinks it will arrange itself so, quite simply--oh, it is quite simple! Dear Miss Farrell, don’t say anything. I have been pushing it off. I have been pretending to be ill because I was miserable. Let me get up now--and don’t say anything,” she added after a moment, with lips that trembled in spite of herself. “There are no--letters; no one--has been here?” “Nothing, Winnie.” Her friend did not look at her; she dared not betray her too profound sympathy, her personal anguish, even by a kiss.