“Ah, yes, exactly!  You see she went into company, as a young lady, when she was only thirteen.  She told me all about it.  Her parents were very injudicious, and they pushed her forward.  She regrets it now.  She knows that it wasn’t the thing at all.  She’s very sensitive to the defects in her early education; but I made her understand that it was the heart more than the head that I cared for.  I dare say, Gracie, she’ll fall into all our little ways without really knowing; and you, in point of fact, will be mistress of the house as much as you ever were.  Lillie is delicate, and never has had any care, and will be only too happy to depend on you.  She’s one of the gentle, dependent sort, you know.”

To this statement, Grace did not reply.  She only began nervously sweeping together the debris of leaves and flowers which encumbered the table, on which the newly arranged flower-vases were standing.  Then she arranged the vases with great precision on the mantel-shelf.  As she was doing it, so many memories rushed over her of that room and her mother, and the happy, peaceful family life that had hitherto been led there, that she quite broke down; and, sitting down in the chair, she covered her face, and went off in a good, hearty crying spell.

Poor John was inexpressibly shocked.  He loved and revered his sister beyond any thing in the world; and it occurred to him, in a dim wise, that to be suddenly dispossessed and shut out in the cold, when one has hitherto been the first object of affection, is, to make the best of it, a real and sore trial.

But Grace soon recovered herself, and rose up smiling through her tears.  “What a fool I am making of myself!” she said.  “The fact is, John, I am only a little nervous.  You mustn’t mind it.  You know,” she said, laughing, “we old maids are like cats,—­we find it hard to be put out of our old routine.  I dare say we shall all of us be happier in the end for this, and I shall try to do all I can to make it so.  Perhaps, John, I’d better take that little house of mine on Elm Street, and set up my tent in it, and take all the old furniture and old pictures, and old-time things.  You’ll be wanting to modernize and make over this house, you know, to suit a young wife.”

“Nonsense, Gracie; no such thing!” said John.  “Do you suppose I want to leave all the past associations of my life, and strip my home bare of all pleasant memorials, because I bring a little wife here?  Why, the very idea of a wife is somebody to sympathize in your tastes; and Lillie will love and appreciate all these dear old things as you and I do.  She has such a sympathetic heart!  If you want to make me happy, Gracie, stay here, and let us live, as near as may be, as before.”

“So we will, John,” said Grace, so cheerfully that John considered the whole matter as settled, and rushed upstairs to write his daily letter to Lillie.

CHAPTER IV.