special request, Mr. Lyon, had spent a whole long, merry, midsummer
day. She wondered whether such a day would ever come again!

But spring was coming again, any how; the field looked smiling and
green, specked here and there with white dots which, she opined.
might possibly be daisies. She half wished she was not too old and
dignified to dart across the road, leap the sunk fence, and run to
see.

"I think, Johanna--Hark, what can that be?"

For at this instant somebody came tearing down the stairs, opened the
front door, and did--exactly what Hilary had just been wishing to do.

"It's Elizabeth, without her bonnet or shawl, with something white
flying behind her. How she is dashing across the field! What can she
be after? Just look."

But loud screams from Selina's room, the front, one, where she had
been lying in bed all morning, quite obliterated the little servant
from their minds. The two sisters ran hastily up stairs.

Selina was sitting up, in undisguised terror and agitation.

"Stop her! Hold her! I'm sure she has gone mad. Lock the door, or
she'll come back and murder us all."

"Who? Elizabeth! Was she here? What has been the matter?"

But it was some time before they could make out any thing. At last