not close enough to her husband's
heart?--that she was his pet, but not his friend--that other wives
whom she knew were not kept outside in the cold?

"I am not too young to understand, if Hugh would only think so," she
said to herself plaintively. "How could I be, when I love him so?"

When Sir Hugh returned to the room an hour later, he was sorry to see
Fay look so flushed and weary. "We shall have you ill after all this,"
he said, reproachfully; "why have you not been a good child and gone
to sleep as I told you?"

"Because I was troubling too much. Oh, Hugh!" clasping him round the
neck, and her little hands felt hot and dry, "are you sure that you
are not angry with me, and that you really love me?"

"Of course I am not angry with you," in a jesting tone. "What an
absurd idea, Wee Wifie."

"I like you to call me that," she answered, thoughtfully, drawing down
one of his hands and laying her cheek on it; and Hugh thought as
Margaret had, what a baby face it was. "I mean to grow older, Hugh,
and wiser too if I can; but you must be patient with me, dear. I know
I can not be all you want just at present--I am only Wee Wifie now."

"Well, I do not wish to change her," replied Sir Hugh, with a touch of
real tenderness in his voice, and then very gently he unloosed the
clinging arms. Somehow Fay's voice and look haunted him as he went
down-stairs. "She is a dear little thing," he said to himself, as he
sat in his library sorting his papers; "I wish I were a better husband
to her," and then he wondered what Margaret had thought of his Wee
Wifie.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ERLE'S VISIT TO THE GRANGE.

He gazed--he saw--he knew the face
Of beauty and the form of grace.

BYRON.

Fay was not very well the next day, and Sir Hugh insisted on sending
for Dr. Martin; Fay was much surprised when the kind old doctor
lectured her quite seriously on her imprudence; and put a veto on any
more skating and riding for the present. The sprained ankle was a
trifle, but all the same he told her grimly she must consider herself
a prisoner for a few days--a very hard sentence to Fay, whose nimble
little feet had never been still for long, and who had certainly never
known a day's illness in her healthy young life; but, with her usual
docility, she promised obedience. Sir Hugh was unusually busy just
then. Some vexatious lawsuit in which the Redmonds had been involved