claiming it. There's just one subject he's
discursive on, and that's the best fertilizer for young orange trees."

Somehow William Leroy did not shine against this background as his
well-intending cousin meant he should. "And they're poor, Mrs. Leroy
and the Captain?" asked Miss Blair.

"Well," admitted Garrard, "they aren't rich."

The girl sat thinking. "I'm going down there," she said suddenly. "Is
there a hotel? There is? Then I'm going to take Molly and go down to
see them. There's something I want to tell Mrs. Leroy and the
Captain."

"As good a place as any," agreed Dr. Garrard. "I told you at the
start Mrs. Garnier must not try a winter here."

"We'll go," declared Alexina, then stopped. Maybe they would not be
glad to see her. "But don't mention the possibility if you should be
writing," she begged; "don't mention knowing me--please. I--I'd like
to discover it all for myself."

After he had gone she went to the piano, near the window looking out
over the warehouse roofs to the river, and, softly fingering some
little melody, sat thinking.

There was a tap and Alexina turned on the piano stool as Emily
Carringford came in. Somehow Emily, so prettily, daintily charming in
her fresh white dress, made Alexina cross. She felt wilted and jaded,
and who cared if she did? That her present state was brought about by
her own choosing only made her crosser.

What was it in Emily's manner? Had she grown more beautiful in a
night? She dropped into a chair, and, holding her parasol by either
end across her knee, looked over at Alexina on the stool, and,
looking, laughed. It was a laugh made of embarrassment and
complacency, half shy, half bold.

"Your Uncle Austen last night asked me to marry him, Alexina," she
said.

"Emily--" Alexina sprang from the stool and stood with apprehension
rushing to her face in rising colour and dilated gaze. "Oh--Emily!"

Was it foreboding in her eyes as they swept Emily's girlish
loveliness?

"He didn't seem to mind my being poor," said Emily; "he said it was my
practical and praiseworthy way of going to work that made him
first--oh, Alexina," she coloured and looked at the other, "he didn't
even mind our little house--and mother doing the work."

A sort of rage against Emily seized Alexina. She stamped her foot.

"Oh," she cried, "why shouldn't he the rather go down on his unbending
knees in gratitude that you'll even listen? You're twenty-one and he's
fifty-one. You have e