ments
past counting you planned for me, the excursions you've let me share with
you--our delicious drives, and above all my coming-out dance."

Whereat Mrs. Frayling disclaimingly shook her very pretty head.

"In pleasing you I have merely pleased myself, dearest, so in that
there's no merit.--Though I do plead guilty to but languid enthusiasm
for girls of your age as a rule. Their conversation and opinions are
liable to set my teeth a good deal on edge. I have small patience, I'm
afraid, at the disposal of feminine beings at once so omniscient and so
alarmingly unripe.--But you see, a certain downy owl, with saucer eyes
and fierce little beak, won my heart by its beguiling ways a dozen
years ago."

"Darling Henrietta!" Damaris softly murmured; and, transported by
sentiment to that earlier date when the said darling Henrietta
commanded her unqualified adoration, began playing with the
well-remembered bunch of trinkets depending from the long gold chain
the lady wore about her neck.

Watching her, Mrs. Frayling sighed.

"Ah, my child, the thought of you is inextricably joined to other
thoughts upon which I should be far wiser not to dwell--far wiser to put
from me and forget--only they are stronger than I am--and I can't."

There was a ring of honest human feeling in Henrietta Frayling's
voice for once.

"No, no--I am more justly an object of commiseration than anyone I leave
behind me at St. Augustin."

And again she laughed, not impishly, but with a hardness altogether
astonishing to her auditor.

"Think," she cried, "of my sorry fate!--Not only a wretchedly ailing
husband on my hands, needing attention day and night, but a wretchedly
disconsolate young lover as well. For poor Marshall will be
inconsolable--only too clearly do I foresee that.--Picture what a pair
for one's portion week in and week out!--Whereas you, enviable being, are
sure of the most inspiring society. Everything in this quiet room"--

She indicated the laden writing-table with a quick, flitting gesture.

"So refreshingly removed from the ordinary banal hotel _salon_--is
eloquent of the absorbing, far-reaching pursuits and interests amongst
which you live. Who could ask a higher privilege than to share your
father's work, to be his companion and amanuensis?"--She paused, as
emphasising the point, and then mockingly threw off--"Plus the smart
_beau sabreur_ Carteret, as devoted bodyguard and escort, whenever you
are not on duty. To few w