Her companion, Elspeth, was a wrinkled old woman, whose smooth gray hair was almost hidden by a huge mob-cap, which, in defiance of modern custom, she wore tied under her chin. She had nursed Rose and her mother before her and had now become more like a family friend than a servant. “Miss Rose,” she replied, looking up from her work, “if you go on chatter-magging away like this, there'll be no frock ready for you tonight,” and with a most uncommunicative air, the old woman turned away, and gave a little impressive shake to the billowy mass of white tarletan to which she was putting the finishing touches. “The white lilies just at the side,” said Rose, her attention diverted for a moment. “Won't it be lovely! The prettiest dress in the room, I'm sure.” Then, her curiosity returning, “But, Elspeth, I sha'nt enjoy the dance a bit unless you tell me what Mr. Luke Raeburn has to do with us? Listen, and I'll tell you how I found out. Papa brought the paper up to Mamma, and said, 'Did you see this?' And then mamma read it, and the color came all over her face, and she did not say a word, but went out of the room pretty soon. And then I took up the paper, and looked at the page she had been reading, and saw grandpapa's name.” “What was it about?” asked old Elspeth. “That's just what I couldn't understand; it was all about secularists. What are secularists? But it seems that this Luke Raeburn, whoever he is, has lost his wife. While he was lecturing at Birmingham on the soul, it is said, his wife died, and this paragraph said it seemed like a judgment, which was rather cool, I think.” “Poor laddie!” signed old Elspeth. “Elspeth,” cried Rose, “do you know who the man is?” “Miss Rose,” said the old woman severely, “in my young days there was a saying that you'd do well to lay to heart, 'Ask no questions, and you'll be told no stories.'” “It isn't your young days now, it's your old days, Elsie,” said the imperturbable Rose. “I will ask you questions as much as I please, and you'll tell me what this mystery means, there's a dear old nurse! Have I not a right to know about my own relations?” “Oh, bairn, bairn! If it were anything you'd like to hear, but why should you know what is all sad and gloomful? No, no, go to your balls, and think of your fine dresses and gran' partners, though, for the matter of that, it is but vanity of vanities--” “Oh, if you're going to quote Ecclesiastes, I shall go!” said Rose, pouting. “I wish that book wasn't in the Bible! I'm sure such an old grumbler ought to have been in the Apocrypha.” Elspeth shook her head, and muttered something about judgment and trouble. Rose began to be doubly curious.