“Very queer ones they are so far, I am sure,” replied Ralph, his face still flushed a little.

“Oh yes,” said Miss Panney, rising, “there are a lot of queer things in this world, and I may be one of them.  Now I will go and see your young lady.  I do not know her very well yet, and I must make her better acquaintance.”

“Miss Panney,” said Ralph, quickly, “if you are going to stir her up with questions such as you put to me, I beg you will not see her.”

“Boy, boy,” said the old lady, “don’t bubble and boil.  I have a great regard for you, and care a great deal more for you than I do for her, and it is only people that I care a great deal for that I stir up.  Go back to your grindstone, or whatever you were at work at, and do not worry your mind about your little Cicely.  It may be that I shall like her enough to wish that I had made the match.”

When Cicely accidentally met Ralph in the garden, a few hours later, she said to him that she could not have imagined that Miss Panney was such a dear old lady.

“Why, Ralph,” said the girl, looking up at him with moistened eyes, “she talked to me so sweetly and gave me such good advice that I actually cried.  And never before, dear Ralph, did good advice make me feel so happy that I had to cry.”

And at this point the two wood doves, who had become regular detectives, actually pecked at each other in their despair of emulation.

Miss Panney’s interview with Cicely had not been very long, because the old lady was anxious to see La Fleur before the doctor got there, and she went down into the kitchen, where, although she did not know it, the cook was expecting her.  La Fleur’s soul was in a state of turbulent triumph, but her expression was as soft as a dish of jelly.

Miss Panney sat down on the chair offered her, while the cook remained standing.

“I came down to ask you,” said the old lady, “if you have heard whether Dr. Tolbridge and his wife have returned.  I suppose you will be going back to them immediately.”

“Oh no,” said La Fleur, her eyes humbly directed toward the floor as she spoke, “at least not for a permanency.  I shall get the doctor a good cook.  I shall make it my business to see that she is a person fully capable of filling the position.  I have my eyes on such a one.  As for me, I shall stay here with my dear Miss Cicely.”

“Good heavens, woman!” exclaimed Miss Panney, “your Miss Cicely isn’t head of this house.  What do you mean by talking in that way?  Miss Haverley is mistress of this establishment.  Haven’t you sense enough to know that you are in her service, and that Miss Drane and her mother are merely boarders?”

Not a quiver or a shake was seen on the surface of the gentle jelly.

“Oh, of course,” said La Fleur, with her head on one side, and her smile at its angle of humility, “I meant that I would come to her when she is settled here as Mrs. Haverley, and her dear mother is living with her, and when Miss Miriam has gone to finish her education at whatever seminary is decided on.  Then this house will seem like my true home, and begging your pardon, madam, you cannot imagine how happy I am going to be.”