ower's modest door
this morning, the modest door in question opened, and Denis Oglethorpe
himself came out, and, of course, caught sight of Theodora North, who
had just bent forward to pull the check-string, and so gave him a full
view of her charming _reante_, un-English face, and, in her pleasure at
seeing him, that young lady forgot both herself and Sir Dugald, and
exclaimed aloud,

"Oh, Mr. Oglethorpe!" she cried out. "I am so glad--" and then stopped,
in a confusion and trepidation absolutely brilliant.

He came to the window, and looked in at her.

"Are you coming to see Priscilla?" he said.

"Lady Throckmorton said I might," she answered, the warmth in her face
chilled by his unenthusiastic though kindly tone. She did not know what
a struggle it cost him to face her thus carelessly all at once.

He did not even open the carriage-door himself, but waited for the
footman to do it.

"Priscilla will be glad to see you," he said, quietly. "I will go into
the house again with you."

The dwarfed sitting-room looked very much as it had looked on Theo's
first introduction to it; but on this occasion Miss Elizabeth was not
arrayed in the snuff-colored satin; and when they entered, Priscilla was
kneeling down upon the hearth-rug, straightening out an obstreperous
fold in it.

She rose, collectedly, at once, and as her face turned toward them, Theo
was struck with some fancy of its being a shade paler than it had been
the last time she had seen it. But her manner was not changed in the
least, and she welcomed her visitor with grave cordiality. Poor little
snuff-colored Miss Elizabeth was delighted. She was getting very fond of
company in her old age, and had taken a great fancy to Theodora North.

"Send the carriage away, and stay with us until evening, Miss Theodora,"
she fluttered in wild, old-maidenly excitement. "Do stay, Miss Theodora,
and I will show you how to do the octagon-stitch, as I promised the last
time you were here. You remember how you admired it in that antimacassar
I was making for Priscilla?"

Miss Elizabeth's chief delight and occupation was the making of
miraculously-gorgeous mysteries for Priscilla; and Theo's modest
eulogies of her last piece of work had won her admiration and regard at
once. Consequently, under stress of Miss Elizabeth, the carriage was
fain to depart, much to the abasement of the fat, gray coachman, who
felt himself much dishonored in finding he was compelled, not only t