"Eight days, mother!"

"It is only four days since everything was arranged, and you
commenced talking your meals regularly at home."

"I know, but then if we can live happily four days, we can four
years."

"Yes, if Pedy could always live with you."

"She appears to be quite well satisfied with her situation," was
Emily's answer.

There was one at work, however, though neither he nor they realized
it, who was sapping their happiness at its very foundation. This was
an honest, intelligent farmer, by the name of Simon Lundley, who one
day, when in the city, happened to overhear the praises bestowed on
Pedy Breck by George Brenton, touching her excellence as a cook and
clear-starcher.

"If," thought he, "she could do these well, the same good judgment
would direct her how to excel in making butter and cheese; and as
his mother, who kept his house, was growing old and infirm, it
appeared to him that it would be convenient for her to have some
person to assist her in the performance of these and other onerous
duties belonging to the in-door work of a farm. He had seen Pedy a
few months previous, when on a visit to a sister who resided in the
neighbourhood of his home, and remembered of having thought it
strange that she had never married as well as her sister, as she was