ed consul at Nice. Randolph Leffingwell gave the impression of
conferring a favour when he borrowed money. I cannot understand why he
married that penniless and empty-headed beauty."

"Perhaps," said Mrs. Hayden, "it was because of his ability to borrow
money that he felt he could afford to."

The eyes of the two ladies unconsciously followed Honora about the room.

"I never knew a better or a more honest woman than Mary Leffingwell, but
I tremble for her. She is utterly incapable of managing that child. If
Honora is a complicated mechanism now, what will she be at twenty? She
has elements in her which poor Mary never dreamed of. I overheard her
with Emily, and she talks like a grown-up person."

Mrs. Hayden's dimples deepened.

"Better than some grown-up women," she said. "She sat in my room while
I dressed the other afternoon. Mrs. Leffingwell had sent her with a
note about that French governess. And, by the way, she speaks French as
though she had lived in Paris."

Little Mrs. Dwyer raised her hands in protest.

"It doesn't seem natural, somehow. It doesn't seem exactly--moral, my
dear."

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Hayden. "Mrs. Leffingwell is only giving the child
the advantages which her companions have--Emily has French, hasn't she?"

"But Emily can't speak it--that way," said Mrs. Dwyer. "I don't blame
Mary Leffingwell. She thinks she is doing her duty, but it has always
seemed to me that Honora was one of those children who would better have
been brought up on bread and butter and jam."

"Honora would only have eaten the jam," said Mrs. Hayden. "But I love
her."

"I, too, am fond of the child, but I tremble for her. I am afraid she
has that terrible thing which is called temperament."

George Hanbury made a second heroic rush, and dragged Honora out once
more.

"What is this disease you've got?" he demanded.

"Disease?" she cried; "I haven't any disease."

"Mrs Dwyer says you have temperament, and that it is a terrible thing."

Honora stopped him in a corner.

"Because people like Mrs. Dwyer haven't got it," she declared, with a
warmth which George found inexplicable.

"What is it?" he demanded.

"You'll never know, either, George," she answered; "it's soul."

"Soul!" he repeated; "I have one, and its immortal," he added promptly.

In the summer, that season of desolation for Honora, when George Hanbury
and Algernon Cartwright and other young gentlemen were at the seashore
learning to sail b