Lesley, you _are_ an
imposition! Think of having a voice like that, and keeping it dark all
this time."

"We shall requisition Miss Brooke for the club very often, I know that,"
said Maurice.

"You'll come in with us, Lesley?" Ethel asked.

"No, thank you, Ethel. Not to-day. Thanks."

She wondered a little nervously why Oliver was looking so vexed
and--yes, so miserable, too! He seemed terribly out of spirits. Had he
and Ethel quarrelled? The thought gave a look of tender inquiry to her
eyes as she held out her hand to him. And on meeting that sweet glance,
Oliver's face brightened. He had been feeling an unreasonable annoyance
with her for walking home with Maurice Kenyon, and had even in his heart
called her "a little French flirt." Though why it should matter to him
that she was a flirt, did not exactly appear.

They said good-bye to each other, and separated. Maurice went off to see
a patient; Oliver accompanied Ethel to her own house; Lesley entered her
own home.

She was alone for an hour or two, and, to tell the truth, she felt
rather dull. Miss Brooke went away to her circle of select souls, and
her father, as she knew, had gone to Mrs. Romaine's. She took out her
much-prized volume of "The Unexplored," and began to read it again;
wishing that she could talk to her mother about it, and explain to her
how really great and good a man her father was. For--she had got as far
as this--she was sure that her mother did not understand him. It would
have been impossible for him to do a mean, a cruel, a dishonorable
action. There had been a misunderstanding somewhere; and Lesley wished,
with her whole soul, that she could clear it up.

The sound of the opening and closing of the front door did not arouse
her from her dreams. She read on, holding the little paper-covered
volume on her lap, deep in deepest thought, until the door of the
drawing-room opened rather suddenly, and her father walked in.

It was an unusual hour at which to see him in the drawing-room, and
Lesley looked up in surprise. Then, half unconsciously, half timidly,
she drew her filmy embroidered handkerchief over the book in her lap.
She had a shy dislike to letting her father see what she was reading.

He did not seem, however, to take any notice of her occupation. He
walked straight to an arm-chair on the opposite side of the hearth, sat
down, stretching out his long legs, and placing his elbows on the arms
of the chair. The unruly lock of