ricked up her ears, and missed the tumbler by several feet.

It was a simple inquiry, but as I look back upon it from the safe ground
of subsequent knowledge I perceive that it had a certain amount of
influence upon Francesca's history. The suggestion would have carried
no weight with me for two reasons. In the first place, Salemina is
far-sighted. If objects are located at some distance from her, she sees
them clearly; but if they are under her very nose she overlooks them
altogether, unless they are sufficiently fragrant or audible to address
other senses. This physical peculiarity she carries over into her mental
processes. Her impression of the Disruption movement, for example, would
be lively and distinct, but her perception of a contemporary lover's
quarrel (particularly if it were fought at her own apron-strings) would
be singularly vague. If she suggested, therefore, that Elizabeth Ardmore
was interested in Mr. Beresford, who is the rightful captive of my bow
and spear, I should be perfectly calm.

My second reason for comfortable indifference is that frequently in
novels, and always in plays, the heroine is instigated to violent
jealousy by insinuations of this sort, usually conveyed by the villain
of the piece, male or female. I have seen this happen so often in the
modern drama that it has long since ceased to be convincing; but though
Francesca has witnessed scores of plays and read hundreds of novels,
it did not apparently strike her as a theatrical or literary suggestion
that Lady Ardmore's daughter should be in love with Mr. Macdonald. The
effect of the new point of view was most salutary, on the whole. She had
come to think herself the only prominent figure in the Reverend Ronald's
landscape, and anything more impertinent than her tone with him (unless
it is his with her) I certainly never heard. This criticism, however,
relates only to their public performances, and I have long suspected
that their private conversations are of a kindlier character. When it
occurred to her that he might simply be sharpening his mental sword on
her steel, but that his heart had at last wandered into a more genial
climate than she had ever provided for it, she softened unconsciously;
the Scotsman and the American receded into a truer perspective, and the
man and the woman approached each other with dangerous nearness.

"What shall we do if Francesca and Mr. Macdonald really fall in love
with each other?" asked Salemina, w