had taken from her hand-basket.

"Of course, if my afflictions are only a subject for laughter--"

"I am not laughing at your afflictions, my dear James. I laughed
because you said I was not a sympathetic listener. You used to think
me so once." Then becoming instantly serious, Aunt Mary said: "Of
course I think this is a matter of great importance--the health, the
welfare of my dear nieces, and your happiness."

"And their salvation," murmured Aunt Hester.

"If I did not think it important, do you think I would have left home,
and at such a time, when I am most wanted? I always said that that big
place would kill me, I never wanted to leave the Poplars; a little
place like that is no trouble--my greenhouse, a few servants, and just
as I had got everything to look nice--I could do it all in a few
hours; but now I am never still, there is always something to be done.
No one can take up my work. I am behindhand; oh, I assure you when I
go back I shall be afraid to go into the greenhouse. I am worn out, I
really am; it never ends. In a big house like Woborn one is always
behindhand. The days aren't long enough, that's the fact of it; when
one thinks one is getting through one thing one is called away to
another. 'Please, mum, the cook would like to speak with you for a
moment.' 'There is no tea in the house, mum.' 'What! is all the tea I
gave out last week gone?' 'Yes, mum. There was, you remember, the
dressmaker here three days, and we had Mrs. Jones in to help. And we
shall want another piece of cheese for the servants' hall.' I don't
know how it is with you, but at Woborn the cloth is never off the
table in the servants' hall. They have five meals a day--breakfast at