of air that might be stirring in the dark garden. Max had
retreated to the empty fireplace, finding the bricks cooler than the
carpeted floor. All was very still, save when the emphatic sweep of a
trump card made the candle flames flicker. But the deals were a
diversion. Then the rector, who had tiptoed about, to look over the
shoulder of each player, might say, "You didn't answer Miss Ruth's call,
Denner;" or, "Bless my soul, Dale, what made you play a ten-spot on that
second hand round? You ought not to send a boy to take a trick, sir!"

It was in one of these pauses that Mrs. Dale, drawing a shining
knitting-needle out of her work, said, "I suppose you got my message this
morning, brother, that Arabella Forsythe didn't feel well enough to come
to-night? I told her she should have Henry's place, but she said she
wasn't equal to the excitement." Mrs. Dale gave a careful laugh; she did
not wish to make Mrs. Forsythe absurd in the eyes of one person present.

"You offered her my place, my dear?" Mr. Dale asked, turning his blue
eyes upon her. "I didn't know that, but it was quite right."

"Of course it was," replied Mrs. Dale decidedly, while the rector said,
"Yes, young Forsythe said you sent him to say so."

Mrs. Dale glanced at Lois, sitting in one of the deep window-seats,
reading, with the lamplight shining on her pretty face.

"I asked him to come," continued the rector, "but he said he must not
leave his mother; she was not feeling well."

"Quite right, very proper," murmured the rest of the party; but Mrs. Dale
added, "As there's no conversation, I'm afraid it would have been very
stupid; I guess he knew that. And I certainly should not have allowed
Henry to give up his seat to him." As she said this, she looked at Mr.
Denner, who felt, under that clear, relentless eye, his would have been
the seat vacated, if Dick Forsythe had come. Mr. Denner sighed; he had no
one to protect him, as Dale had.

"I wonder," said Miss Deborah, who was sorting her cards, and putting all
the trumps at the right side, "what decided Mr. Forsythe to spend the
summer here? I understood that his mother took the house in Ashurst just
because he was going to be abroad."

Mrs. Dale nodded her head until her glasses glistened, and looked at
Lois, but the girl's eyes were fastened upon her book.

"I think," remarked Mr. Dale, hesitating, and then glancing at his wife,
"he is rather a changeable young man. He has one view in the morni