"My dear, what a firebrand!" whispered Irais. I got up and went in.
They were sitting on the sofa, Minora with clasped hands, gazing admiringly
into Miss Jones's face, which wore a very different expression from the one
of sour and unwilling propriety I have been used to seeing.

"May I ask you to come to tea?" I said to Minora.
And I should like to have the children a little while."

She got up very reluctantly, but I waited with the door
open until she had gone in and the two babies had followed.
They had been playing at stuffing each other's ears with pieces
of newspaper while Miss Jones provided Minora with noble thoughts
for her work, and had to be tortured afterward with tweezers.
I said nothing to Minora, but kept her with us till dinner-time,
and this morning we went for a long sleigh-drive.
When we came in to lunch there was no Miss Jones.

"Is Miss Jones ill?" asked Minora.

"She is gone," I said.

"Gone? "

"Did you never hear of such things as sick mothers?" asked Irais blandly;
and we talked resolutely of something else.

All the afternoon Minora has moped. She had found a kindred spirit,
and it has been ruthlessly torn from her arms as kindred spirits
so often are. It is enough to make her mope, and it is not her fault,