"Yes," cried Rachel, "you are come to your own home, for us to take
care of you."

"I take care of mamma! Major Keith said so," indignantly exclaimed
Conrade.

"There's plenty of care for you both to take," said Fanny, half-
smiling, half-sobbing. "The Major says I need not be a poor
creature, and I will try. But I am afraid I shall be on all your
hands."

Both boys drummed on her knee in wrath at her presuming to call
herself a poor creature--Conrade glaring at Rachel as if to accuse
her of the calumny.

"See the church," said Lady Temple, glad to divert the storm, and
eagerly looking at the slender spire surmounting the bell-turret of a
small building in early-decorated style, new, but somewhat stained by
sea-wind, without having as yet acquired the tender tints of time.
"How beautiful!" was her cry. "You were beginning the collection for
it when I went away! How we used to wish for it."

"Yes, we did," said Rachel, with a significant sigh; but her cousin
had no time to attend, for they were turning in a pepper-box lodge.
The boys were told that they were arrived, and they were at the door
of a sort of overgrown Swiss cottage, where Mrs. Curtis and Grace
stood ready to receive them.

There was a confusion of embraces, fondlings, and tears, as Fanny
clung to the aunt who had been a mother to her--perhaps a more tender