"It is not likely that Isabella would understand her; Mrs. Broderick is the bravest and the brightest woman I know, and yet the furnace was heated sevenfold for her. Make believe that he is alive! Why, he has never been dead to her! It is her vivid faith and her vivid imagination that has helped her to live all these years instead of lying there a crushed wreck for people to patronise and pity." 

 And here again there was a wicked little twinkle in the Vicar's eyes. Did he not know his Isabella, and how good she was to those who would allow her to advise and lecture them. 

 "Mrs. Broderick has just laughed and put her foot down, that is why Isabella is always complaining of her. They have not exactly hit it off."  And here the Vicar laughed softly as he sat down to consider his sermon. 

 "Aunt Madge, how cosy you look!" exclaimed Olivia, as she stood on the threshold of the warm firelit room; and then a swift transition of thought carried her back to the dismal little dining-room at Galvaston Terrace, with its black smouldering fire, and the damp clinging to the window-panes, and an involuntary shiver crossed her as she knelt down beside her aunt's couch. 

 "My dear Livy, you are a perfect iceberg!" exclaimed Mrs. Broderick. "No, you shall not kiss me again until you are warmer. Sit down in that easy-chair close to the fire where I can see you, and take that handscreen for the good of your complexion.—Now, Deb, bring the tea-things, like a good soul, for Mrs. Luttrell has made a poor dinner." 

 "How could you guess that, Aunt Madge? Are you a witch or a magician?" asked Olivia, in her astonished voice. It was pure guess-work on Mrs. Broderick's part, but as usual her keen wits had grazed the truth. 

 Olivia, who had a healthy girlish appetite, had risen from the midday meal almost as hungry as when she had sat down. The dish of hashed mutton had been small, and if Olivia had eaten her share, Martha would have fared badly. A convenient flower-pot, a gift from Aunt Madge, had prevented Marcus from seeing his wife's plate. Olivia, who had dined off potatoes and gravy, was already faint from exhaustion. As usual, she confessed the truth. 

 "It was my fault, Aunt Madge," she said, basking like a blissful salamander in the warm glow.  "I ought to have known the meat would not go round properly; but happily Marcus did not notice, or else there would have been a fuss. He and Martha dined properly, and I mean to 

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