One bright day in early spring, when the children had begun to hunt in the woods for trailing arbutus, and the Shenandoah River reflected in its clear depths the outlines of the overlooking mountains, a small, straight figure, sensibly habited in a short gray gown, made its way along the single paved street of Bloomdale to the principal store.

Young Heaton Smith, the handsome, blue-eyed son of the proprietor, came forward with a smiling welcome. After a few minutes' preliminary talk, Miss Phillida confessed that she had some notion of buying a dress.

He placed a stool in front of the counter extending along that side of the store which was devoted to dry goods, and, with the air of one

who affords a pleasant surprise, laid before her several rolls of sheer, silky stuff in dainty colorings; the most conspicuous being that which bore bunches of deep pink rosebuds on a light brown ground.

"Beautiful!" murmured Miss Phillida, taking hold of the edge with a delicate, blue-veined hand covered with a network of fine wrinkles. "How Sister Emma would love this pattern!"

"Here's a blue," said Heaton, laying another before her. "Handsome, aren't they? They come ten yards to a piece; just enough for a dress. We only got 'em in yesterday."

"I am mightily taken with this pink, Heaton. But I reckon it's too young-looking for me."

"You don't think yourself old, ma'am? Mother was saying, only the other day, that none of the girls could beat you for complexion."

"Just hear the boy! If it was Sister Emma, you might talk so. I do agree with anybody that calls her a beauty. But I reckon you don't recollect Sister Emma, Heaton? You was a child when she went away."

"I recollect her, though. It's about ten years now, ain't it? I was twelve then. I know I haven't forgot that big wedding-cake with the twelve dozen eggs in it."

"Really, Heaton?" said Miss Phillida, coloring with pleasure. "I was rather proud of that cake. Emma could make nice cake herself. I suppose she's had a chance to forget it. Her time's taken up other ways. Denver's quite a gay place, she says; and of course her husband's position requires her to go out a great deal."

This was uttered in a tone of proud satisfaction. Everybody in Bloomdale knew what a comfort it was to the solitary woman to talk about her sister. The Virginia beauty had married a western millionaire, and when at the monthly sewing society Miss Phillida read aloud her last Denver letter, these staid, but pleasure-loving Virginia matrons listened eagerly.

Young Heaton leaned back against the shelves in an easy, conversational attitude, and looked politely interested.

"Of course you know she's coming home to make a visit, Heaton?" The little lady's joy and yearning brimmed over her mild blue eyes, and she lowered her head, pretending to examine the goods.

"So I heard," said Heaton cordially. "We'll all enjoy seeing her, I'm shore."

"I expect her to-morrow," Miss Phillida cried excitedly. "By the morning train."

A vehicle drew up before the long porch, and the little woman endeavored to seem occupied with her purchase.

"I reckon this black and white'd be more appropriate to my years," she said in a critical tone. "But somehow I'm awfully in the notion of taking that pink."

"Take the pink, Miss Phillidy; and if you change your mind, we'll take it back and give you another in the place of it."

Miss Phillida cast another glance at the black and white, then turned again to the pink.

"I'll take it then, Heaton. I feel somehow as if it'd please Emma to have me get a gown that looked cheerful. And I must be getting young again, for I haven't been so in the notion of dressing up for ages. But, dear me! if I haven't forgot to ask the price! Maybe it's beyond my reach."

"No, indeed, Miss Phillidy, it's a bargain. Five dollars for any pattern. A chance we mayn't be able to offer our customers again."

It was a considerable sum for Miss Phillida to give for a spring dress. She was deep in calculations when a handsome ruddy man of about forty-five entered the store, and greeted her with delightful heartiness.

He called her "Cousin Phillidy," and the cousinship, although very distant, enabled him to do the little woman many a good turn. In his heart, Mr. Ned Miller always looked upon her as the woman who might, but for a chance, have been his sister-in-law. The chance had been Emma Wood's marriage with another man. But that was not his fault. Bloomdale said that Ned Miller was of too affectionate a nature to stay a widower.

As she reflected his sunshiny smile and answered his gay badinage, a strange idea suddenly entered Miss Phillida's head. It made her get up in great haste.

"I—I'll take the pink, Heaton," she said quickly. "I'll carry it right with me."

"My horses air at the door, cousin. Let me drive you up the street."

"It's but a step; I'm obliged to you, Cousin Ned. And it's such a sweet day, I like to walk."

"Well, I'll see you at preaching Sunday, cousin. And your sister, too, I hope. But if I'm in town before, I'll just call in—to see if I can be of any service."

"Thank you," murmured Miss Phillida. "Give my love to all at Maplegrove," and she hastened homeward, amazed at herself, and inclined to believe that the Father of Evil had put that startling notion into her head.

She stopped at the gate of a low, brown house opposite the Methodist Church, and, going through a garden crowded with sweet, old-fashioned flowers, opened the side door into a little entry about six feet square, from which one door on the left led to the sitting-room, and another on the right into a spare bedroom. The kitchen lay beyond the sitting room, and thither Miss Phillida directed her steps. A cup of tea, taken upon the spotless pine table, brought her back to herself. She had spread out the dress pattern over the back of the settee, to look at while she ate her dinner; and after washing up the dishes, she opened a door leading into a chilly bedroom, all dark, rich old mahogany and white draperies, and carefully laid it away in the lower drawer of a capacious bureau.

"I reckon it was extravagant of me," she soliloquized. "But I couldn't shame Emma by appearing out in company with her in old duds."

Emma arrived the next morning. Bloomdale was looking for her when the train stopped at the dilapidated old shed called a "deep-ho." At first Bloomdale thought itself disappointed. It had expected a brilliant young lady accompanied by a quantity of baggage, exhibiting, perhaps, some of the haughtiness of a person used to the homage paid to rank and wealth. Instead, there was left upon the platform, besides a small, plain trunk, a tall woman dressed all in black, her face covered with a heavy veil. She advanced hesitatingly. Miss Phillida, straining her eyes to see through that veil, suddenly pressed forward and fell into her arms.

"It's you, sister! I know you by your walk. Come and get into the carryall, there's room for the trunk at the back."

Bewildered, but energetic, she steered her sister past the little crowd and landed her safely in the old carryall, upon the back of which a strapping negro was already adjusting the trunk. Miss Phillida recognized him as the coachman of Mr. Ned Miller, and the tears came to her eyes as he handed her the reins. To her excited sense, it seemed significant that the first person to show kindness to Emma on her home-coming should be some one belonging to her old lover.

She talked without knowing what she said. So far, Emma had not spoken, after the first low murmur of greeting. Emma!—the gay, sparkling girl whose high spirits and talent for conversation had made her a favorite in county society. For whom could she be in mourning? Miss Phillida racked her brain with conjectures.

When they were inside the house Emma lifted her veil, gazing around like one who had just returned to life from a long trance. Her face, whose beauty was of a grand type, softened and brightened from its look of stern repose, as one by one she recognized objects once loved and familiar.

"Everything is just the same," she said in a low voice, vibrant with feeling. "Grandfather's and father's swords there on the wall, the fox-skin rugs, the horse-hair armchairs, and the dear old brass andirons!—How good of you to have a fire, Phillida, dear! It looks so cheerful. I haven't seen a wood fire on the hearth since I left home."

"You mean home in Denver?" palpitated Miss Phillida, feeling strangely awed by this sister with grave manner and pale face.

"No!" The denial was quick and passionate, more like the fervor of the old Emma. She threw off her bonnet and cloak with rapid movements, and held out her arms to little Miss Phillida. In a moment all constraint had melted away between the long-severed sisters. The tongue of the elder was loosened, and she asked question after question, which, however, Emma parried.

"I have a long story to tell you, dear; but let us wait till evening. When the curtains are drawn and the lamps lit, I shall feel better able to talk. Let me just enjoy being at home, for a little while."

She followed Miss Phillida out to the kitchen and, sitting on a low chair with the big black cat purring in her lap, watched her fry the chicken and bake the corn cakes for dinner, talking meanwhile, fluently and entertainingly, of life in the West, and of the different cities she had visited. But not a word of herself.

When dinner was over, she insisted upon wiping the dishes; and it was then that Miss Phillida scrutinized her dress, and saw that it was rusty, and not of fine material.

"Oh, just a traveling dress," thought the elder sister, who experienced an odd fluttering of the heart.

The afternoon was consumed in examining the house and garden. Miss Phillida raised her own vegetables, and kept a few chickens, which latter amused themselves by scratching up her seeds and pecking her choicest tomatoes as they ripened. A creek watered the lower end of the garden, and here a half-dozen ducks disported lazily. Under a spreading apple tree was a bench covered with an old buffalo robe, upon which she sat with her sewing on summer afternoons. Surrounded thus by comfort and peace, the gentle spinster had lived her harmless existence, conscious of but one ungratified wish: the longing for her sister. And now that wish was accomplished. With tremors of delight she displayed everything, confiding all her little plans to affectionate, sympathetic ears. Each homely detail gave Emma fresh pleasure. She seemed to desire to penetrate to the heart of this simple home life; to attach herself to it, like one who thirsted for an intimacy with something genuine and natural.

Miss Phillida saw with pleasure that clouds were gathering, and that darkness would come on earlier than usual. Emma became grave again after supper; and when she seated herself in the big rocking-chair before the hearth in the sitting-room, the firelight played over features that wore an expression of noble sadness.

"It is three years since I left Denver," she said, turning her luminous gray eyes upon her sister's bewildered countenance. "I sent my letters to a friend there who mailed them to you. It was not necessary for you to be harassed by a knowledge of my sufferings. You fancied I was living a happy, care-free life with a rich and generous husband. Heavens!—How unsophisticated we are, we country folks in Virginia!

"I can't make it all plain to you, Phillida, for you wouldn't understand without having gone through it, how, little by little, I learned the ways of society, and on what a base foundation the wealth we enjoyed was built. Robert was a speculator, and a reckless, unscrupulous one. And besides this he was not honest in small things. The husband I had imagined a fairy prince, full of noble qualities, was not only false but mean. He gave me whatever was necessary to make a show; nothing for my pleasure. Poor little sister! Don't you suppose I wanted to send you presents? I never had a dollar of my own all those seven years. But finally the end came. Robert failed—and it was a dishonorable failure. He went away in the night, leaving me to bear the brunt of everything."

"Oh, oh!" breathed Miss Phillida. "And didn't he come back?"

"He wrote me a letter from Canada, telling me to come over to him, for he was sick. Well, I went! I nursed him, and worked for him,—and I put up for two years with a life that was Purgatory. You mustn't expect me to be very sorry he died then, Phillida. You wouldn't if you knew all. I did hate to come back to you,—such a failure! But it was a miserable existence all alone there, in Quebec, and—I knew you would be glad to see me, dear!"

For a few moments the sisters wept together. Then Emma raised her head.

"I thought that perhaps I might get a school. Of course I intend to do something."

"No, no!" cried Miss Phillida, wiping her eyes and taking her sister's hand. "You needn't do that, dearest. With the garden and the cow and chickens, there is plenty. And then, you know, the hundred a year that comes from the railroad shares is as much yours as mine. Everything is yours, and, thank heaven, you're at home now, where everybody'll be good to you!"

"The same generous, self-sacrificing little soul! But, dear Phillida, I must work, if only to keep myself happy. I should soon be miserable and restless with nothing to do. Come, make up your mind to let me be a help instead of a burden. I have set my heart upon the school. Tell me, who are the trustees now?"

"Cousin Ned Miller's a trustee," replied Miss Phillida, who had grown thoughtful. "Perhaps you're right, Emma. Maybe you'll be happier with the children to think about. And he'll get you a school, I'm quite sure."

Emma rocked softly back and forth, looking into the fire. Perhaps she saw visions there of a new and happier life, for her face took on an expression of content.

But some little personal worry preyed upon Miss Phillida's mind. She said nothing about it, but one morning when Emma had gone for a drive with one of the neighbors, she took from the bureau drawer the precious parcel reposing there, and with an air of guilt made her way to the store.

"I've brought back this dress," she said confidentially to Heaton. "And if you'll be so kind as to change it, I'll take the black and white piece. I feel it's more suitable, somehow."

He readily obliged her, and the new pattern was deposited in the deep drawer, after which the little woman wore an air of chastened cheerfulness.

Cousin Ned Miller justified Miss Phillida's confidence. He not only promised Emma the school, but offered to get a class in French for her; and he spent time running about, waiting on her, and cheering her in every way that could suggest itself to his kind heart. His handsome team stood almost every day before the little brown house, while he loitered on the honeysuckle scented porch with the sisters. There was always some plausible excuse for his coming, and the true meaning of his visits did not dawn upon Miss Phillida's mind until one afternoon when she suddenly entered the sitting-room and saw them on the sofa together.

The little woman's face was aflame with joyous excitement, as she ran into the kitchen and began moving things about, without knowing or caring what she did. The happiest outcome!—the most natural, the most comfortable, and most reasonable arrangement that could happen! Emma and Cousin Ned! They were made for each other.

"I really can't keep still," thought Miss Phillida. "I must go somewhere."

As she put on her old gray gown, a thought suddenly flashed into her mind. "Maybe it'll look curious," she reflected. "But I declare if I won't."

Once more she entered the store with a parcel under her cape. Fortunately the accommodating clerk was the only one around.

Miss Phillida blushed as she laid the black and white dress pattern on the counter.

"I'm ashamed to be so changeable, Heaton, indeed I am; but things have altered lately, and—my mind's more given to bright colors, somehow. So, if it won't inconvenience you any, and if you'd really just as lief—I think I'll change back to the pink."