Queenie, who was overwhelmed with business, and had scarcely time to bid her friend good-bye, and add a few words as to future arrangement, at parting, suddenly missed Emmie in her usual corner. She had searched the house without success, and was becoming terribly frightened, when a maid informed her that she had seen Emmie toiling up the garret stairs with the kitten in her arms.
The little girl was curled up in her usual place, gazing dreamingly out of the window, when Queenie entered. The little face looked small and white under the cap-border; the soft yellow down peeping out here and there gave her an infantile appearance.
"Dear Emmie, why have you come here?" began her sister, reprovingly; but Emmie held up her finger and stopped her.
"Hush! of course we ought to say good-bye to the poor old place; don't you know prisoners sometimes kiss the walls of their cell, though they are really not sorry to leave it. We have had nice times here, Queen, though we have been so very unhappy. As I sat here before you came up, I felt as though there must be two Emmie's; I feel so different to the old one that used to hide her face and cry when it got dark."
"Then we will not stay and make ourselves miserable in this gloomy place," interrupted Queenie, anxiously. "Caleb will be here directly, and we must go and say good-bye to Miss Titheridge. Come, Em, come," and Emmie obeyed reluctantly.
Miss Titheridge looked embarassed and nervous, and Queenie purposely shortened their leave-taking. When Emmie's turn came she held up her face to be kissed.
"Good-bye," she said, looking at the governess with her large serious blue eyes. "Thank you for being kind to me at last. I am so sorry you could not love me; but I dare say it was my fault;" and as Miss Titheridge bent over her something beside a kiss was left on the child's thin cheek.
Caleb's little house seemed a perfect haven of refuge that night. Queenie felt almost too happy as she arranged their effects in the little dark room that Caleb had set apart for his guests. It seemed wrong of her to be so light-hearted while the future was so uncertain.
Emmie lay in the big brown bed, with ugly drab curtains edged with green, and watched her as she moved about actively, singing over her work. The room had a side window looking over a stone-mason's yard; the white monuments gleamed in the red evening light; a laburnum shook long sprays of gold against the panes; Molly's linnet sung against the wall; Caleb in his old coat walked contentedly up and down the narrow garden path between his currant-bushes; some children were playing among the slabs and ledges of stone. How humble it was, and yet how peaceful; a quiet waiting-place until the new work came ready to her hand. One evening, as she was sitting sewing at the open window, Caleb beckoned her mysteriously to join him in his favorite walk between the currant-bushes.
"My dear," he began, his eyes becoming round as usual, and betraying a tendency to hesitate slightly between his words, "I want your advice, your assistance, indeed. I have—hem—I may say—I have a delicate and peculiar commission on hand,—hem,—and I—in short, a lady's advice would be most suitable, and, I may say, satisfactory. Molly is a good creature," he continued, after a pause, "an admirable creature, of course; but in this her advice is of such a nature that I must own I should hesitate to adopt it. She is fond of bright colors, you see; and as long as there is plenty of red and green in a pattern she would find no fault."