ardly
ideals." He sighed.

"You poor babies!" said Elinor softly, to herself.

"What did you do with the little girl, Ross?"

"Her great-aunts kept her. The same women, Miss Eliza and Miss Letitia
Redfield, that had raised her mother. Matilda's mother was their
sister. Miss Asenath, the third aunt, is a cripple. You must know her
some day, Elinor. She is 'pure beauty' and pure everything else. And
what a friend she was to me when I needed her!"

"How old would she be?"

"Who, Miss Asenath? About seventy."

"No, of course not, dear goose! Arethusa."

"Oh, I don't know. Eighteen, I suppose. Yes, just about."

Elinor looked for a moment as if she did not believe what she had heard
him say.

"Ross Worthington!"

"I'm all attention."

"Am I to understand that you actually haven't seen that child for
eighteen whole years!"

"You are."

"Why, Ross!"

"Well, I told you why I didn't go back home just at first, Elinor.
A scrap of an infant who seemed to thoroughly dislike the sound of
my voice, for as I remember it, she howled vociferously every time I
went near her, was not much attraction. And then I just put off going
back and kept putting it off, year after year. Now do you still
wonder"--suddenly whimsical--"that I could forget all about her?"

"I never wonder at anything you do, Ross," replied his wife. Her tone
was grave. "I gave that up a long time ago. But I would call your
behaviour, in this instance, heartless; if I didn't know you well
enough to know you wouldn't really be consciously harsh to a fly."

"Heartless!" he echoed.

"Yes, heartless!" she repeated firmly. "Your own child! And eighteen
whole years! Oh, Ross!"

"But she's been well taken care of," he protested, though somewhat
feebly.

"Very probably she has. But you're her father. I verily believe, Ross
Worthington," she added suddenly, "that you haven't even told her you
were going to be married!"

The pendulum of Ross's moods swung very rapidly, as rapidly as ever
that of his daughter. The little softness aroused by the thought of
Arethusa's mother had passed, and now his eyes were full of
unmistakable fun.

"No," he replied, "I will have to confess that I haven't. I didn't
think she would be very much interested. And 'Where ignorance is
bliss,' you know."

"Ross!"

"Oh, come now, Elinor, do make some allowances! You ought to be feeling
flattered, instead of getting all up in the air about it. It shows such
a complete abso