stock certificates
from one of the secret drawers of the desk. He would see about selling
the stock and making re-investments to-morrow.

It must be done,--to save the Hildreth honor.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Once more the Hildreth household was united, if such a thing as union
could be possible, among so many diverse elements.

Isabelle's chill hauteur had increased with the years and a peevish
discontent was carving indelible lines upon her face which was rapidly
losing its delicate contour and bloom. Marion's pink and white beauty
was at its zenith, and the social attentions she was beginning to
receive only served to render her elder sister more than ever irritable
and envious. Louis was his old nonchalant self, careless and listless,
with an ever deepening expression of _ennui_ which was pitiful in one so
young. His European travels had not improved him, in Evadne's opinion.

She saw but little of her cousins. They passed their days in pleasure,
she in work; but Marion, in her rare moments of reflection, as she
thought of the strangely peaceful face of the young nurse, wondered
sadly whether Evadne had not chosen the better part after all.

"Oh, Louis!" she cried one morning, and her voice was full of pain,
"how you are wasting this beautiful life that God has given you!"

Louis stretched himself lazily in his arm-chair and clasped his hands
behind his head. "Thanks for your high opinion, coz. Of what special
crime do I stand accused before the bar of your judgment?"

"Oh, it is nothing special, but you are just frittering away the days
that might be filled with such noble work, and you have nothing to show
for them but--smoke!" She swept her hand through the filmy cloud which
Louis just then blew into the air, with a gesture of disdain. "Now you
will think I am preaching, but indeed, indeed I am not, only, it hurts
me so!"

Louis laughed and threw away his cigar. "No, I will not charge you with
belonging to the cloth, but I confess I should like you better if you
had not entrenched yourself behind such a high wall of prejudice against
all the good things of this life. You are too narrow, Evadne."

Evadne folded her hands together as if she were holding a strange, sweet
comfort against her heart. "The Jews said the same about Jesus Christ,"
she said, "why should the servant be judged more kindly than her Lord?"

"But there is no harm in these things, Evadne."

"There is no good in them. Life is so real,