"I am sure I don't know what in the world I shall do without you, dear!" said good Lady Corbet. "You have been everything to us during this disastrous time of sickness and poor Paulina's trouble, and I shall always say that it was a blessed day for us all when I met you at Mrs. Bowler's. At the same time, I don't deny that my kinswoman hath the best right to you, and perhaps needs you more than I, in respect she hath no daughters to keep her company in her widow's household. And though daughters are a care, doubtless, and an anxiety, yet it cannot be denied that they are a great comfort. I am sure Sir John would have always given you a home as long as you needed it, and would have provided a marriage portion for you the same as for his own girls, and no doubt my lady will do the same when you come to leave her, as of course you will do some day, sweetheart, for such maids as you do not go begging." "I shall never leave my lady," said Winifred, hastily, and vexed to feel her cheeks growing scarlet. "Aye, aye, that is what they all say," said Lady Corbet, smiling. "'I shall never leave you, mother,' says Pall. Poor Pall, I do not know what she, of all others, will do without you." Winifred echoed her good friend's sigh. She felt herself drawn two ways, and while she, like the rest, took it for granted that she was to go with Lady Peckham, she could not help feeling many regrets for those she was leaving behind. The next day Lady Corbet came up again, full of smiles and significant looks. "Aha, madam, did I not say our Winifred was not one to go begging?" said she, addressing herself to Lady Peckham, who was amusing her young cousins with some stories of her experience abroad, while Mrs. Alwright looked over and rectified the much abused tapestry work. Then recollecting herself, she assumed an air of becoming importance, as she beckoned Lady Peckham into the next room. "I wonder what my mother means?" said the literal Jemima, as the door closed. "Why should Mrs. Winifred go begging?" "She does not really mean begging," said Phyllis, laughing. "I know what it is! Somebody has been proposing for Winifred, and I guess who it is, too! It is Mr. Gunnison." "Mr. Gunnison!" said Jemima, slowly. "Why, he is married. I saw his wife's name in the cathedral. 'Here lies Mary, beloved wife of James Gunnison, aged twenty-six!'" "But she is dead, you goose! Don't you know that when you read her name on the tomb yourself? How should she be in the cathedral vault, else?" "Oh, I do hope it is Mr. Gunnison, because then Winifred will live in the Close and we can see her every day."