ad bent very low now over the arm of the chair.

Lady Garnett had been talking so far in a somewhat desultory
fashion, interspersing her words with brief caresses to the pug who
was curled up in her lap. Now she put down the little dog with a
brusqueness which hurt his dignity; he pawed fretfully at Mary's
dress, and, attracting no attention, trotted of to his basket on the
rug, where he settled himself with a short growl of discontent. And
Lady Garnett, with a sudden change of tone and a new tenderness in
her voice, just stooped a little and touched the young girl's
forehead with her thin lips.

"My poor child!" she said, "my dear little Mary! Did you suppose I
didn't know? Did you think I was blind, as well as very old, that I
shouldn't see the change in you, and guess why?"

"Ah!" cried the girl with a break in her voice. "What are you
saying? What do you make me say?"

"Nothing! nothing!" said the old lady; "you need not tell me
anything. It is only I who tell you--like the old immortal in
Daudet, _J'ai vu ca moi_!--and it will pass as everything passes. That
is not the least sad part, though now you will hardly believe it.
You see, I don't lie to you; I tell you quite plainly that it is no
good. Some men are made so--_vois tu, ma cherie_!--to see only one
woman, an inaccessible one, when they seem to see many, and _he_ would
be like that. Only it is a pity. And yet who would have foreseen
it--that he should charm you, Mary? He so tired and old and _use_--for
he is old for you, dear, though he might be my son--with his
humorous, indolent, mocking talk, and his great, sad eyes. It's
wicked of me, Mary, but I love you for it; so few girls would have
cared, for he _is_ a wretched match. And I blame myself, too."

"Because I am foolish and utterly ashamed?" cried the girl from her
obscurity, in a hard, small voice which the other did not know.

"Foolish!" she exclaimed. "Well, we women are all that, and some
men--the best of them. But ashamed? Because you have a wise mother,
my darling, who guesses things? I have never had any children but
you and him. And no one but I can ever know. No; I was sorry because
I had to hurt you. But it was best, my dear, because you are so
strong. Yes, you are strong, Mary!"

"Am I?" said the girl wearily. "What is the good of it, I wonder?
Except that it makes one suffer more and longer."

"No," said Lady Garnett. "It makes one show it less, and only that
matters. Aren't we goin