The girls were walking across the common by themselves. It was part of Mrs. Stone’s enlightened system that she allowed them to do so, in cases where the parents did not interfere. And so far as these two were concerned, even the consent of the parents was unnecessary; for was not Katie Russell, though only eighteen, a governess in the bud? and, accordingly, quite capable of acting as chaperon when necessary. Poor little Katie! this was one of the mild indignities of her lot that she felt most. Her lot was not at all a bad one at Mrs. Stone’s, where the head of the establishment backed her up quietly as indeed the one of her inmates with whom she was most in sympathy--and when the girls were “nice.” Girls are not all “nice,” any more than any other class of the community, and Katie had known what it was to be snubbed and scorned, and even insulted. But happily this was not the fashion at the White House. Still one mark of her inferior position remained in the fact that Katie, though so young, and one of the prettiest, of the band, was, being half a governess, qualified to accompany her peers in the character of chaperon. It was not quite clear that she might not be at that moment taking care of Lucy, who was less than a year her junior; but happily this idea had not crossed her mind. It was Sunday, which was a day of great freedom at the White House--a day given over (after due attention to all religious duties, need it be said? for Mrs. Stone knew what was expected of her, and you may be sure took all her doves to church with the most undeviating regularity) to confidences, to talks, to letter-writings. Some of the girls were covering sheets of note-paper with the most intimate revelations, some were chattering in corners, some reading story-books. Story-books are not necessarily novels-- Mrs. Stone made a clever distinction. There was nothing in three volumes upon her purified and dignified shelves; but a book in one volume had a very good chance of coming within her tolerant reading of the word story. And some were out, perambulating about the garden, where the first crocuses were beginning to bloom, or crossing the common by those devious little paths half hidden in heather and all kinds of wild plants which were bad for boots and dresses, but very pleasant otherwise. It was along one of these that Lucy Trevor and her companion were wandering. The mossy turf was very green, betraying the moisture beneath; and the great bushes of heather, with all the withered bloom stiffened upon them, stood up like mimic forests from the treacherous grass. Wild bushes of gorse, with here and there a solitary speck of yellow, a premature bud upon them, interspersed their larger growth here and there. The frost had all melted away. In the little marshy pools, the water was clear and caught glimpses of a sky faintly blue. One willow on the very verge of the common had hung out its tassels, those prophecies of coming life.