Then that gentleman was aware that one of the black figures had a widow’s cap, with streamers flying behind her in the breeze, but while he was taking off his hat and beginning, “Mrs. Brownlow,” she held out her hands to his sister, crying, “Mary, Mary Ogilvie,” and there was an equally fervent response.  “Is it?  Is it really Caroline Allen?” and the two friends linked eager hands in glad pressure, turning, after the first moment, towards the house, while Mary said, “David, it is my dear old schoolfellow; Carey, this is my brother.”

“You were very kind to these boys,” said Carey, warmly shaking hands with him.  “The name sounded friendly, but I little thought you were Mary’s brother.  Are you living here, Mary?  How delightful!”

“Alas, no; I am only keeping holiday with David.  I go back to-morrow.”

“Then stay now, stay and let me get all I can of you, in this frightful muddle,” entreated Caroline.  “Chaos is come again, but you won’t mind.”

“I’ll come and help you,” said Mary.  “David, you must go on alone and come back for me.”

“Can’t I be of use?” offered David, feeling rather shut out in the cold; “I see a bookcase.  Isn’t that in my line ?”

“And here’s the box with its books,” said Janet.  “Oh! mother, do let that be finished off at least!  Bobus, there are the shelves, and I have all their pegs in my basket.”

The case was happily in its place against the wall, and Janet had seized on her recruit to hold the shelves while she pegged them, while the two friends were still exchanging their first inquiries, Carey exclaiming, “Now, you naughty Mary, where have you been, and why didn’t you write?”

“I have been in Russia, and I didn’t write, because nobody answered, and I didn’t know where anybody was.”

“In Russia!  I thought you were with a Scottish family, and wrote to you to the care of some laird with an unearthly name.”

“But you knew that they took me abroad.”

“And Alice Brown told me that letters sent to the place in Scotland would find you.  I wrote three times, and when you did not answer my last-—” and Caroline broke off with things unutterable in her face.

“I never had any but the first when you were going to London.  I answered that.  Yes, I did!  Don’t look incredulous.  I wrote from Sorrento.”

“That must have miscarried.  Where did you address it.”

“To the old place, inside a letter to Mrs. Mercer.”

“I see!  Poor Mrs. Mercer went away ill, and did not live long after, and I suppose her people never troubled themselves about her letters.  But why did not you get ours.”

“Mrs. McIan died at Venice, and the aunts came out, and considering me too young to go on with the laird and his girls, they fairly made me over to a Russian family whom we had met.  Unluckily, as I see now, I wrote to Mrs. Mercer, and as I never heard more I gave up writing.  Then the Crimean War cut me off entirely even from David.  I had only one letter all that time.”