ld be; and that Helen had that little affair with Theseus
before she ever thought of Paris; and that if Cleopatra died for love
of Antony it was not until she had previously lived a great while with
Caesar.

So Felix Kennaston had his hour. Now Margaret has gone into Selwoode,
flame-faced and quite unconscious that she is humming under her breath
the words of a certain inane old song:

"Oh, she sat for me a chair;
She has ringlets in her hair;
She's a young thing and cannot leave her mother"--

Only she sang it "father." And afterward, she suddenly frowned and
stamped her foot, did Margaret.

"I _hate_ him!" said she; but she looked very guilty.

X

In the living-hall of Selwoode Miss Hugonin paused. Undeniably there
were the accounts of the Ladies' League for the Edification of the
Impecunious to be put in order; her monthly report as treasurer
was due in a few days, and Margaret was in such matters a careful,
painstaking body, and not wholly dependent upon her secretary; but she
was entirely too much out of temper to attend to that now.

It was really all Mr. Kennaston's fault, she assured a pricking
conscience, as she went out on the terrace before Selwoode. He had
bothered her dreadfully.

There she found Petheridge Jukesbury smoking placidly in the
effulgence of the moonlight; and the rotund, pasty countenance he
turned toward her was ludicrously like the moon's counterfeit in muddy
water. I am sorry to admit it, but Mr. Jukesbury had dined somewhat
injudiciously. You are not to stretch the phrase; he was merely
prepared to accord the universe his approval, to pat Destiny upon
the head, and his thoughts ran clear enough, but with Aprilian
counter-changes of the jovial and the lachrymose.

"Ah, Miss Hugonin," he greeted her, with a genial smile, "I am indeed
fortunate. You find me deep in meditation, and also, I am sorry to
say, in the practise of a most pernicious habit. You do not object?
Ah, that is so like you. You are always kind, Miss Hugonin. Your
kindness, which falls, if I may so express myself, as the gentle rain
from Heaven upon all deserving charitable institutions, and daily
comforts the destitute with good advice and consoles the sorrowing
with blankets, would now induce you to tolerate an odour which I am
sure is personally distasteful to you."

"But _really_ I don't mind," was Margaret's protest.

"I cannot permit it," Mr. Jukesbury insisted, and waved a pudgy hand
in the moo