"Poor Mr. Logan!" laughed Queenie. "You must learn to count to yourself, Miss Cosie; knit one and purl two is not a very pleasant running accompaniment to the leading article."
"Bless you, dearie, Christopher was not reading!" responded the little woman with a sigh, "he was just staring at the fire and groaning to himself in a quiet way. Though he has said very little about it he feels it terribly; he was as pale as a man could look when he came home and told me last night. 'I feel it as much as though it had happened to myself, Charlotte,' he said; and I believe, poor fellow, he meant it."
"Dear Miss Cosie! what can you be talking about?" asked Queenie in a perplexed voice. "Is there any trouble in Hepshaw with which I am unacquainted?"
"There, there, you don't mean to say they have not told you?" replied Miss Cosie in an awe-stricken whisper, "and such friends as you are, too. Ill news fly apace, they say. Well, the righteous are taken away from the evil to come. His poor mother would have fretted her heart out to see him look as he does to-night, poor dear! and not a wink of sleep and scarce a mouthful of food since he first heard it, and that was yesterday morning, so Christopher says."
"Dear Miss Cosie! won't you please tell me what you mean?" begged Queenie beseechingly.
Miss Cosie was apt to become incoherent and rambling under any strong emotion, it would never do to hurry her into an explanation; but, all the same, these vague hints were filling her with dismay.
"I have not heard of anything: is—is there any trouble at Church-Stile House?" faltered the girl, growing a little pale over her words.
"Dear, dear! who would have thought of such a thing? what could Catherine have been thinking of?" cried Miss Cosie, patting her curls nervously. "Never mind, there, don't distress yourself, for there's good come out of every kind of evil, so Christopher tells us; and very beautiful his sermons are, my dear, and very comforting to sick souls; and it showed great want of faith in me to burst out crying as I did. 'Don't tell me that that poor young fellow has lost all his money, Kit, my dear!' I said, 'for it breaks my heart to think of such a thing;' and Christopher said—"
"Well, what did Mr. Logan say?" asked Queenie as calmly as she could, while Miss Cosie wiped her eyes.
There was not an atom of color in her face. Could it be Garth of whom she was speaking?