ter her father,
Ovid was the one other person in the world who held a place in Zo's odd
little heart. Her sentiments were now expressed without hesitation
and without reserve. She put down her spoon, and she cried, "Hooray!"
Another exhibition of vulgarity. But even Miss Minerva was too
completely preoccupied by the revelation which had burst on the family
to administer the necessary reproof. Her eager eyes were riveted on
Ovid. As for Mr. Gallilee, he held his bread and butter suspended
in mid-air, and stared open-mouthed at his stepson, in helpless
consternation.

Mrs. Gallilee always set the right example. Mrs. Gallilee was the first
to demand an explanation.

"What does this extraordinary proceeding mean?" she asked.

Ovid was impenetrable to the tone in which that question was put. He had
looked at his cousin, when he declared his change of plan--and he was
looking at her still. Whatever the feeling of the moment might be,
Carmina's sensitive face expressed it vividly. Who could mistake the
faintly-rising colour in her cheeks, the sweet quickening of light in
her eyes, when she met Ovid's look? Still hardly capable of estimating
the influence that she exercised over him, her sense of the interest
taken in her by Ovid was the proud sense that makes girls innocently
bold. Whatever the others might think of his broken engagement, her
artless eyes said plainly, "My feeling is happy surprise."

Mrs. Gallilee summoned her son to attend her, in no friendly voice.
She, too, had looked at Carmina--and had registered the result of her
observation privately.

"Are we to hear your reasons?" she inquired.

Ovid had made the one discovery in the world, on which his whole heart
was set. He was so happy, that he kept his mother out of his secret,
with a masterly composure worthy of herself.

"I don't think a sea-voyage is the right thing for me," he answered.

"Rather a sudden change of opinion," Mrs. Gallilee remarked.

Ovid coolly agreed with her. It _was_ rather sudden, he said.

The governess still looked at him, wondering whether he would provoke an
outbreak.

After a little pause, Mrs. Gallilee accepted her son's short
answer--with a sudden submission which had a meaning of its own. She
offered Ovid another cup of tea; and, more remarkable yet, she turned
to her eldest daughter, and deliberately changed the subject. "What are
your lessons, my dear, to-day?" she asked, with bland maternal interest.

By this tim