‘She is a good woman, Uncle Max,’ I observed, when he had finished.  ’She is working herself to death, and Phoebe never gives her a word of comfort.’

‘How can you expect it?’ he replied quietly.  ’You cannot draw comfort out of empty wells, and poor Phoebe’s heart is like a broken cistern, holding nothing.’

‘But surely you talk to her, Uncle Max?’

‘I have tried to do so,’ he answered sadly; ’but for the last year she has refused to see me, and Hamilton has advised me to keep away.  If I cross the threshold it is to see Miss Locke.  I thought it was a whim at first, and I sent Tudor in my stead; but she was so rude to him, and lashed herself into such a fury against us clerics, that he came back looking quite scared, and asked why I had sent him to a mad woman.’

‘She was angry with me to-day.’  And I told him about the blind.

‘That is right, Ursula,’ he said encouragingly.  ’You have made a good beginning:  the singing may do more to soften her strange nature than all our preaching.  You will be a comfort to Miss Locke, at any rate.’  And then he stopped, and looked at me rather wistfully, as though he longed to tell me something but could not make up his mind to do it ’You will be a comfort to us all if you go on in this way,’ he continued; and then he surprised me by asking if I had not yet seen the ladies from Gladwyn.

The question struck me as rather irrelevant, but I took care not to say so as I answered in the negative.

’You have been here nearly a week; they might have risked a call by this time,’ he returned, knitting his brows as though something perplexed him; but I broke in on his reflections rather impatiently.

’I declare, Max, you have quite piqued my curiosity about these people; some mystery seems to attach to Gladwyn.  I shall expect to see something very wonderful.’

‘Then you will be disappointed,’ he returned quietly, not a bit offended by my petulance.  ’I cannot help wishing you to make acquaintance with them, as they are such intimate friends of mine, and I think it will be a mutual benefit.’

Then, as I made no reply to this, he went on, still more mildly: 

’I confess I should like your opinion of them.  I have a great reliance in your intuition and common sense; and you are so deliciously frank and outspoken, Ursula, that I shall soon know what you think.  Well, I must not stay gossiping here.  Your company is very charming, my dear, but I have letters to write before bedtime.  You will see our friends in church on Sunday.  I hear Miss Elizabeth comes home to-morrow; she is the lively one,—­not quite of the Merry Pecksniff order, but still a bright, chatty lady.

“From morning till night
It is Betty’s delight
To chatter and talk without stopping.”

‘You know the rest, Ursula, my dear.  By the bye,’ opening the door, and looking cautiously into the passage, ’I wonder whom the Bartons are entertaining in the kitchen to-night?  I hear a masculine voice.’