e morning
air. Where they stood they were concealed, but from the garden walk they
would be plainly visible.

"Leave me," she said, hurriedly.

"I will; I will cross the field, and approach the house by the road, so
that you will be quite safe. But I shall see you again, Anne." He bent
his head, and touched her hand with his lips, then sprang over the stone
wall, and was gone, crossing the fields toward the distant turnpike.

Anne returned to the house, exchanging greetings as she passed with the
well-preserved jaunty old gentleman who was walking up and down the
piazza twenty-five times before breakfast. She sought her own room,
dressed herself anew, and then tapped at her grandaunt's door; the
routine of the day had her in its iron grasp, and she was obliged to
follow its law.

Mrs. Lorrington came in to breakfast like a queen: it was a royal
progress. Miss Teller walked behind in amiable majesty, and gathered up
the overflow; that is, she shook hands cordially with those who could
not reach Helen, and smiled especially upon those whom Helen disliked.
Helen was robed in a soft white woollen material that clung closely
about her; she had never seemed more slender. Her pale hair, wound round
her small head, conveyed the idea that, unbound, it would fall to the
hem of her dress. She wore no ornaments, not even a ring on her small
fair hands. Her place was at some distance from Miss Vanhorn's table,
but as soon as she was seated she bowed to Anne, and smiled with marked
friendliness. Anne returned the salutation, and wondered that people did
not cry out and ask her if she was dying. But life does not go out so
easily as miserable young girls imagine.

"Eggs?" said the waiter.

She took one.

"I thought you did not like eggs," said Miss Vanhorn. She was in an
ill-humor that morning because Bessmer had upset the plant-drying
apparatus, composed of bricks and boards.

"Yes, thanks," said Anne, vaguely. Mr. Dexter was bowing good-morning to
her at that moment, and she returned the salutation. Miss Vanhorn,
observing this, withheld her intended rebuke for inattention. Dexter had
bowed on his way across to Helen; he had finished his own breakfast, and
now took a seat beside Miss Teller and Mrs. Lorrington. At this instant
a servant entered bearing a basket of flowers, not the old-fashioned
country flowers of Caryl's, but the superb cream-colored roses of the
city, each on its long stalk, reposing on a bed of unmixed h