ent a night at Lanarth a day or so
before coming North, and that the family were all well.

She cheered Thorne wonderfully, for she seemed to bring Virginia and
the life of the last few months nearer to him--the peaceful life in
which new hopes had budded, in which he had met, and known, and loved
Pocahontas. Norma did him good, raised his spirits, and made the
future look bright and cheerful; but not in the way she hoped and
intended. She had come North with the hope of furthering her own
plans, of making herself necessary and agreeable, of keeping the old
days fresh in his memory. And she _was_ necessary to him, as a trusted
comrade who had never failed him; a clever adviser in whose judgment he
had confidence; a charming friend who was fond of him, and who had, but
now, come from the enchanted land where his love dwelt. Of her plans
he knew nothing, suspected nothing; and the days she brought fresh to
his thoughts were days in which she had no part.

In a little while, he went West, and there was a period of uneventful
waiting; after which Norma received a Western paper containing a short
and unobtrusive notice of the granting of a divorce to Nesbit Thorne
from Ethel, his wife.

She bore it away to her room and gloated over it greedily. Then she
took her pen and ran it around the notice, marking it heavily; this
done, she folded, sealed and directed it in a clear, bold hand--General
Percival Smith,--Wintergreen Co., Virginia. It would save elaborate
explanations.

CHAPTER XVI.

Spring opened very late that year in Virginia--slowly and regretfully,
as though forced into doing the world a favor against its will, and
determined to be as grudging and disagreeable over it as possible. The
weather was cold, wet, and unwholesome--sulking and storming
alternately, and there was much sickness in the Lanarth and Shirley
neighborhood. The Christmas had been a green one--only one small spurt
of snow on Christmas eve, which vanished with the morning. The negroes
were full of gloomy prognostications in consequence, and shook their
heads, and cast abroad, with unction, all sorts of grewsome prophecies
anent the fattening of the church-yard.

All through the winter, Mrs. Mason had been ailing, and about the
beginning of March she succumbed to climatic influences, backed by
hereditary tendency, and took to her bed with a severe attack of
inflammatory rheumatism. Pocahontas had her hands full with household
car