ar me, Barby. I have learned my lesson at last. If I
only get my wife back, you shall see--you shall see how I will make up
to her for all I have ever made her suffer! My poor girl! my poor
girl!" And then he shaded his face, and was silent.

Phillis had stolen out in the garden, and sat down on a little bench
outside, where passers-by could not discern her from the road, and
where only the sound of their voices reached her faintly. Now and
then, chance words fell on her ear,--"Magdalene" over and over again;
and "Janie" and "Bertie,"--always in the voice she had so admired. By
and by she heard her own name, and rose at once, and found them
looking for her.

"Here is my good angel, Barby," observed Mr. Cheyne, as she came up
smiling. "Not one girl in a thousand would have acted as bravely and
simply as she has done. We are friends for life, Miss Challoner, are
we not?" And he stretched out his hand to her, and Phillis laid her
own in it.

"I was a bit harsh with you, dearie, was I not?" returned Miss
Mewlstone, apologetically: "but there! you were such a child that I
thought you had been deceived. But I ought to have known better,
craving your pardon, my dear. Now we will just go back to Magdalene;
and you must help my stupid old head, for I am fairly crazy at the
thought of telling her. Go back into the parlor and lie down, Herbert,
for you are terribly exhausted. You must have patience, my man, a wee
bit longer, for we must be cautious,--cautious, you see."

"Yes, I must have patience," he responded, rather bitterly. But he
went back into the room and watched them until they disappeared into
the gates of his own rightful paradise.

Miss Mewlstone was leaning on Phillis's arm. Her gait was still rather
feeble, but the girl was talking energetically to her.

"What a spirit she has! just like Magdalene at her age," he thought,
"only Magdalene never possessed her even temper. My poor girl! From
what Barby says, she has grown hard and bitter with trouble. But it
shall be my aim in life to comfort her for all she has been through!"
And then, as he thought of his dead children, and of the empty
nursery, he groaned, and threw himself face downward upon the couch.
But a few minutes afterwards he had started up again, unable to rest,
and began to pace the room; and then, as though the narrow space
confined him, he continued his restless walk into the garden, and then
into the shrubberies of the White House.

"My dear,