alley."

He devoted the next morning to Mary, and wandered among the pictures
with her. He strove to share her enthusiasm, and, indeed, did so
sometimes. Then occurred a little incident, so trivial that they forgot
all about it within an hour, yet were reminded of it at a very startling
moment now fast approaching.

They had separated, and Sir Walter's eye was caught by a portrait. But
he forgot it a moment later in passing interest of a blazoned coat of
arms upon the frame--a golden bull's head on a red ground. The heraldic
emblem was tarnished and inconspicuous, yet the spectator felt curiously
conscious that it was not unfamiliar. It seemed that he had seen it
already somewhere. He challenged Mary with it presently; but she had
never observed it before to her recollection.

Sir Walter enjoyed his daughter's interest, and finding that his company
among the pictures added to Mary's pleasure, while his comments caused
her no apparent pain, he declared his intention of seeing more.

"You must tell me what you know," he said.

"It will be the blind leading the blind, dearest," she answered, "but my
delight must be in finding things I think you'll like. The truth is that
neither of us knows anything about what we ought to like."

"That's a very small matter," he declared. "We must begin by learning to
like pictures at all. When Ernest comes, he will want us to live in his
great touring car and fly about, so we should use our present time to
the best advantage. Pictures do not attract him, and he will be very
much surprised to hear that I have been looking at them."

"We must interest him, too, if we can."

"That would be impossible. Ernest does not understand pictures, and
music gives him no pleasure. He regards art with suspicion, as a
somewhat unmanly thing."

"Poor Mr. Travers!"

"Do not pity him, Mary. His life is sufficiently full without it."

"But I've lived to find out that no life can be." In due course Ernest
and Nelly arrived, and, as Sir Walter had prophesied, their pleasure
consisted in long motor drives to neighboring places and scenes of
interest and beauty. His daughter, in the new light that was glimmering
for her, found her father's friends had shrunk a little. She could speak
with them and share their interests less whole-heartedly than of old;
but they set it down to her tribulation and tried to "rouse" her. Ernest
Travers even lamented her new-found interests and hoped they were "only
a pa