for her feet, and Mrs. Pendleton a silken scarf, to protect her from the slightest draught from the open windows.

"You treat me as though I were a queen," said Miss Rogers, smiling through her tears.

She could scarcely eat her breakfast, Sally and Louisa hung about her chair so attentively, ready to anticipate her slightest wish. But looking around, she missed the sweet, wistful face that she had seen in her room the night before.

"Are all the family assembled here?" she inquired, wondering if it had not been a dream she had had of a sweet white face and a pair of sad gray eyes.

"All except Patience," replied Mrs. Pendleton, with a frown. "She's rather queer, and prefers not to join us at table or in the drawing-room. She spends all her time up in the attic bedroom reading the Bible and writing Christmas stories for children for the religious papers. We don't see her for weeks at a time, and actually forget she lives in this house. She's quite a religious crank, and you won't see much of her."

Miss Rogers saw the girls laugh and titter at their mother's remarks; and from that moment they lowered in her estimation, while sweet Patience was exalted.

CHAPTER XVII.

The next few days that passed were like a dream to Miss Rogers. Everyone was so kind and considerate it seemed that she was living in another world.

Mrs. Pendleton had cautioned the girls against mentioning the fact of Sally's coming marriage, explaining that she might change her mind about leaving her fortune to the family if she knew there was a prospect of wealth for them from any other source.

"But it would not be fair to let her make sister Sally her heiress," said Louisa, bitterly. "She ought not to get both fortunes. She will come into a magnificent fortune through marrying Jay Gardiner. Why should you want her to have Miss Rogers' money, too? You ought to influence that eccentric old lady to leave her fortune to me."

"Hush, my dear. Miss Rogers might hear you," warned her mother. But the warning had come too late. In coming down the corridor to join the family in the general sitting-room, as they had always insisted on her doing, she had overheard Miss Louisa's last remark.

She stopped short, the happy light dying from her eyes, and the color leaving her cheeks.

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