ite again, as she resolved to tell
Mrs. Lorton that the engagement was broken off.

"It doesn't matter, mamma," she said; and she tried to smile.

Mrs. Lorton stared at her over the chocolate.

"Doesn't matter?" she echoed. "You think he's so madly in love with you
that it doesn't matter how you look, I suppose? Don't lay that
flattering unction to your soul, Eleanor. I've known many an engagement
broken off in consequence of the man coming suddenly upon the girl when
she had a bad cold and had got a red nose and eyes."

"Perhaps I've had a bad cold without knowing it, mamma, and Drake must
have come upon me when my nose and eyes were appallingly red, for our
engagement--is--broken--off."

Mrs. Lorton nearly dropped the cup of chocolate, and stared and gasped
like a fish out of water.

"Broken off!" she exclaimed. "Take this cup away! Give me the sal
volatile. Open the window! No, don't open the window! What are you
talking about? Are you out of your mind?"

Nell took the cup, got the sal volatile, and soothed the flustered woman
in a mechanical fashion.

"Hush, hush, mamma!" she said. "I don't want Dick to know yet."

"But why--how----What have you been doing?" demanded Mrs. Lorton; and
Nell could have laughed.

"Nothing very bad, mamma," she said.

"But you must have," insisted Mrs. Lorton. "Of course it's your fault."

"Is it absolutely necessary that there should be any fault?" said Nell
wearily. "But let us say that it is my fault. Perhaps it is!" She
laughed unconsciously, and with a touch of bitterness. "What does it
matter whose fault it is? The reason isn't of any consequence at all;
the fact is the only important thing, and it is a fact that our
engagement is broken. It was broken last night, and I tell you at once,
mamma; and I want to beg you not to ask me any questions. Drake--Mr.
Vernon--will no doubt go away to-day, and we shan't see him any more."
She went to the window to arrange the blind, and Mrs. Lorton didn't see
the twitching of the white lips which spoke so calmly. "And I want to
forget him; I want you, too, to try and forget him, and not to remind me
of him by a single word. It was very foolish, my thinking that he cared
for me----Oh, I can't say another word----"

She stopped suddenly, her hands writhing together.

Mrs. Lorton stared at the counterpane with a half-sly, half-speculative
expression in her faded eyes.

"After all," she said meditatively, "it was not such a particu