tent vivacity.

'That was why I left,' he finished firmly. There was in his tone a hint
of that engaging and piquant antagonism which springs up between lovers
and dies away; he had the air of telling her that since she had invited
a confession she was welcome to it.

She retreated, still admiring, and said evenly that the ball had been a
great success.

Soon afterwards Ethel and Milly unexpectedly entered the room. They had
put on the formal aspect of dejection which they deemed proper for them,
but on perceiving that their elders were talking quite naturally, they
at once abandoned constraint and became natural too. From the sight of
their unaffected pleasure in seeing Arthur Twemlow again, Leonora drew
further sustenance for her mood of serene content.

'Just fancy, Mr. Twemlow,' Millicent burst out. 'We walked all the way
to Oldcastle, and we never thought, and no one reminded us. It's
father's fault, really.'

'What is father's fault, really?'

'It's Thursday afternoon and the shops were all shut. We shall have to
go to-morrow morning.'

'Ah!' he said. 'The stores don't shut on Thursday afternoon in New
York.'

'Mother will be able to come with us to-morrow morning,' said Ethel, and
approaching Leonora she asked: 'Are you all right, mother?'

This simple, familiar conversation, and the free movements of the girls,
and the graver suavity of Arthur and herself, seemed to Leonora to
constitute a picture, a scene, of mysterious and profound charm.

Arthur rose to depart. The girls wished him to stay, but Leonora did not
support them. In a house where an aged relative lay ill, and that
relative so pathetically bereaved, it was not meet that a visitor should
remain too long. Immediately he had gone she began to anticipate their
next meeting. The eagerness of that anticipation surprised her. And,
moreover, the environment of her life closed quickly round her; she
could not ignore it. She demanded of herself what was Arthur's excuse
for calling, and how it was that she should be so happy in the midst of
woe and death. Her joyous confidence was shaken. Feeling that on such a
day she ought to have been something other than a delicate chatelaine
idly dispensing tea in a drawing-room, she went upstairs, determined to
find some useful activity.

The light was failing in the sick-room, and the fire shone brighter.
Bessie had disappeared, and Rose sat in her place. Uncle Meshach still
slept.

'Have you had a good