Here May had a decided advantage over Marion Marion who never went out in the evening, and who could not therefore, enliven the invalid with amusing descriptions. Then May collected the appendages of her toilette scattered about her mother's room,fan, opera-cloak, bouquet, scent-bottle, and treasured "programme," and gathering up her skirt (now, alas, shorn of much of its pristine glory), she made her way up stairs to her own room. "Yes, it has been all very nice," she said to herself. But I fancy Gertrude must have spent a more satisfactory evening than I have." Gertrude was a cousin of May's who had developed a wonderful talent for nursing, and who was now presiding over an hospital in the east-end of London. There was a "coolness" between the two families, and therefore May had few opportunities for seeing her cousin. She would have liked nothing better than to have learned at her feet. May awoke on the following morning with the agreeable consciousness that "something nice" was going to happen. Is there anything more delightful, I wonder, than to awake feeling happy without precisely knowing why? It slowly dawned upon May that this was the Thursday that she was to go to Fern Hollow, and have a "good talk" with Aunt Grace. CHAPTER III. AUNT AND NIECE. THE village where Miss Harcourt lived was about three miles from the nearest railway station, and this fact explains the primitive character of the place. An hour spent in the Great Western express brought May to Arlingford Junction, and thence the journey to Fern Hollow was made in the lumbering old fly which the station-master provided for her. As the heavy vehicle jogs along, we must take a peep into the windows of Daphne Cottage, where the sun is already shedding its evening rays, gilding the frames upon the walls, and tinging, with prismatic hues, the cut-glass dishes filled with fruit, cream, and other |