urning; the fashion of her hair was
subdued to match her manners, and Daniel, having a dim notion that he
might unknowingly have offended, asked in his clumsy way what troubled
her.

She edged closer to him and looked up, and he could see that she was
laughing at herself, though that helped him not at all.

"Isn't my father dead? And aren't we going to have a family consultation
in the dining-room? Well, here am I."

"I see."

"What do you see?"

He turned away. "I'm not going to tell you."

"Ah, Daniel dear, do! I know I'm horrid and frivolous and vain, and I
tease you, but I'm very fond of you and I should love--oh, love--you to
tell me something nice. Quick, Daniel! Quick, before the others come
in!"

He was red, and his forehead glistened as he said, "You'll only throw it
up at me."

"Oh, as if I would! I don't care for that expression, but I won't.
Daniel, some one's coming!"

He blew his nose and bent over his book, yet through the trumpeting and
the manipulation of his handkerchief, she heard a word.

"Beautiful," he mumbled.

"Always?"

He nodded, and like a delighted child, she clapped her hands.

Rupert, less debonair than usual, opened the door. "Come on," he said.
"We're all ready. Daniel, stay where you are. We don't want you tumbling
into the conclave."

"All right, all right."

"Got something to keep you quiet?"

"Greek grammar."

"Good man. Now then!" He plunged across the hall as though it were an
icy bath.

In the candle-lighted dining-room, Mildred Caniper sat by a wood fire.
The table barricaded her from the four Canipers who sat and looked at
her with serious eyes, and suddenly she found that she had very little
to say. Those eyes and the four mouths curved, in their different ways,
for passion and resolve, seemed to be making courteous mock of her; yet
three at least of the Canipers were conscious only of pity for her
loneliness behind the shining table.

"After all," she said, trying to be at ease, "there is not much to tell
you; but I felt that, perhaps, you have never understood your father
very well."

"He did not give us the opportunity," Rupert said.

John had his shoulders raised as though he would shield his ears from
family discordances, and he swore inwardly at Rupert for answering back.
What was the good of that? The man was dead, and he might be allowed to
rest. It was strange, he thought, that Rupert, under his charming ways,
had a hardness of which he hi