"Our good minister would say it was not intended for mortals."

"If I felt like being quite content I should not give it up because
somebody else said it was too much for me."

"Oh, well," said Katie, laughing, "it has nothing to do with our good
Parson Shurtleff, anyway."

"I thought not. What, then?"

The other did not answer, but sat looking out of the window with eyes
that were not studying the landscape. Whether her little troubles
dissolved into the cloudless sky, like mist too thin to take shape, or
whether she preferred to keep her perplexities to herself is uncertain,
but when she spoke it was about another reminiscence of school days.

"Do you remember that morning Stephen came to see me?" she began. "Madam
thought at first that Master Archdale must be my father, and she gave a
most gracious assent to my request to go to walk with him. I was dying
of fun all the time, I could scarcely keep my face straight; then, when
she caught a glimpse of him as we were going out of the hall, she said
in a dubious tone, 'Your brother, I presume, Mistress Archdale?' But I
never heard a word. I was near the street door and I put myself the
other side of it without much delay. So did Stephen. And we went off
laughing. He said I was a wicked little cousin, and he spelled it
'cozen;' but he didn't seem to mind my wickedness at all." There was a
pause, during which Katie looked at her smiling friend, and her own
face dimpled bewitchingly. "This is exactly what you would have done,
Elizabeth," she said. "You would have heard that tentative remark of