ne was brought back
to him in a dog-cart, and three days later he heard that her mother,
Mrs. Porson, was dead.

Some months passed, and when they met again, on her return from the
Riviera, Morris found his cousin changed. She had parted from him a
child, and now, beneath the shadow of the wings of grief, suddenly
she had become a woman. Moreover, the best and frankest part of their
intimacy seemed to have vanished. There was a veil between them. Mary
thought of little, and at this time seemed to care for no one except
her mother, who was dead. And Morris, who had loved the child, recoiled
somewhat from the new-born woman. It may be explained that he was afraid
of women. Still, with an eye to business, he spoke to her about the
aerophone; and, so far as her memory served her, she confirmed all the
details of their short conversation across the gulf of empty space.

"You see," he said, trembling with excitement, "I have got it at last."

"It looks like it," she answered, wearily, her thoughts already far
away. "Why shouldn't you? There are so many odd things of the sort. But
one can never be sure; it mightn't work next time."

"Will you try again?" he asked.

"If you like," she answered; "but I don't believe I shall hear anything
now. Somehow--since that last business--everything seems different to
me."

"Don't be foolish," he said; "you have nothing to do with the hearing;
it is my new receiver."

"I daresay," she replied; "but, then, why couldn't you make it work with
other people?"

Morris answered nothing. He, too, wondered why.

Next morning they made the experiment. It failed. Other experiments
followed at intervals, most of which were fiascos, although some were
partially successful. Thus, at times Mary could hear what he said. But
except for a word or two, and now and then a sentence, he could not hear
her whom, when she was still a child and his playmate, once he had heard
so clearly.

"Why is it?" he said, a year or two later, dashing his fist upon the
table in impotent rage. "It has been; why can't it be?"

Mary turned her large blue eyes up to the ceiling, and reflectively
rubbed her dimpled chin with a very pretty finger.

"Isn't that the kind of question they used to ask oracles?" she asked
lazily--"Oh! no, it was the oracles themselves that were so vague. Well,
I suppose because 'was' is as different from 'is' as 'as' is from 'shall
be.' We are changed, Cousin; that's all."

He pointed to