. There it was, two embroidered initials, S.L.
Where had it dropped from? Who had put it there? Was it a message or an
accident? Yet it was both and neither. His mother had found the dainty
thing in the package from New York that held the gown and ornaments,
where it had dropped from Sylvia's waist that night, four months before,
when she stood leaning on Miss Lavinia Dorman's table, as the parcel was
being tied.

Mrs. Bradford had pondered over it silently until, the day when I went to
see her and chanced to mention Sylvia Latham's name, its identity flashed
upon her; and when gropingly she came to associate this name with
something that troubled Horace, obliterating self and mother jealousy,
she tucked the bit of linen underneath his pillow, with an undefined
idea, knowing nothing, in the hope that it might comfort him. And so it
did; for even when he learned the manner of its coming, he put it in his
letter case as a reminder not to despair but wait.

* * * * *

When a week had passed and the matter of the divorce had been well aired,
discussed, and was no longer a novelty to her neighbours on the Bluffs,
Mrs. Latham's plan of soon closing her cottage and transferring the
servants to Newport, with the exception of the stable men and a couple of
caretakers, was announced, as she was going abroad for the baths. The
same day Lavinia Dorman received an urgent note from Sylvia, asking her
"when and where she could see her alone, if, as she thought likely, she
did not feel inclined to come to the house." The tone of the brief note
showed that Sylvia felt the whole matter to be a keen disgrace that not
only compromised herself but her friends.

Of course Miss Lavinia went, and would have gone even if she had to
combat Mrs. Latham, for whom she asked courteously at the door; but that
lady, for some reason, did not choose to appear and run the gantlet, and
sent an elaborate message about a sick headache by the now somewhat
crestfallen Perkins. Presently Sylvia slipped into the morning room, and
crouching by Miss Lavinia, buried her face in her friend's lap, the
tension at last giving way, and it was some time before she grew quiet
enough to talk coherently, and tell her plan, which is this: she wishes
Miss Lavinia to take the Alton cottage (which is furnished) at the foot
of the Bluffs, for the rest of the season, and live there with her. Then
as soon as Mrs. Latham has gone, and the poor gir