no reason whatever why
it should not be perfectly simple.

When Miss Kimpsey arrived at Euston Station next day,
with all her company, to take the train For Scotland;
she found Elfrida waiting for her, a picturesque figure
in the hurrying crowd with her hair blown about her face
with the gusts of wind and rain, and her wide dark eyes
looking quietly about her. She had a bunch of azaleas in
her hand, and as Miss Kimpsey was saying with gratification
that Elfrida's coming down to see her off was a thing
she did _not_ expect, Miss Bell offered her these.

"They will be pleasant in the train perhaps," said she.
"And do you think you could find room for this in one of
your boxes? It isn't very bulky--a trifle I should like
so much to send to my mother, Miss Kimpsey. It might go
by post, I know, but the pleasure will be much greater
to her if you could take it."

In due course Mrs. Bell received the packet. It contained
a delicate lace head-dress, which cost Elfrida the full
pay and emoluments of a fortnight. Mrs. Bell wore it at
all social gatherings of any importance in Sparta the
following winter, and often reflected with considerable
pleasure upon the taste and unselfishness that so obviously
accompanied the gift.

CHAPTER XVIII.

If John Kendal had been an on-looker at the little episode
of Lady Halifax's drawing-room in Paris six months earlier
it would have filled him with the purest, amusement. He
would have added the circumstance to his conception of
the type of young woman who enacted it, and turned away
without stopping to consider whether it flattered her or
not. His comprehension of human nature was too catholic
very readily to permit him impressions either of wonder
or contempt--it would have been a matter of registration
and a smile. Realizing this, Kendal was the more at a
loss to explain to himself the feeling of irritation
which the recollection of the scene persistently aroused
in him, in spite of a pronounced disposition, of which
he could not help being aware, not to register it but to
ignore it. His memory refused to be a party to his
intention, and the tableau recurred to him with a
persistence which he found distinctly disagreeable. Upon
every social occasion which brought young ladies of beauty
and middle-aged gentlemen of impressive eminence into
conversational contact he saw the thing in imagination
done again. In the end it suggested itself to him as
paintable--the astonished dr