th an airy briskness utterly foreign to
Orientalites. Cecily opened the gate and went through. They met under
the amber-tinted sugar maple in the heart of the hollow. As he passed,
the man lifted his hat and bowed with an ingratiating smile.

He was about forty-five, well, although somewhat loudly dressed, and
with an air of self-satisfied prosperity pervading his whole
personality. He had a heavy gold watch chain and a large seal ring on
the hand that lifted his hat. He was bald, with a high, Shaksperian
forehead and a halo of sandy curls. His face was ruddy and weak, but
good-natured: his eyes were large and blue, and he had a little
straw-colored moustache, with a juvenile twist and curl in it.

Cecily did not recognize him, yet there was something vaguely familiar
about him. She walked rapidly up to the house. In the sitting-room she
found Lucy Ellen peering out between the muslin window curtains. When
the latter turned there was an air of repressed excitement about her.

"Who was that man, Lucy Ellen?" Cecily asked.

To Cecily's amazement, Lucy Ellen blushed--a warm, Spring-like flood
of color that rolled over her delicate little face like a miracle of
rejuvenescence.

"Didn't you know him? That was Cromwell Biron," she simpered. Although
Lucy Ellen was forty and, in most respects, sensible, she could not
help simpering upon occasion.

"Cromwell Biron," repeated Cecily, in an emotionless voice. She took
off her bonnet mechanically, brushed the dust from its ribbons and
bows and went to put it carefully away in its white box in the spare
bedroom. She felt as if she had had a severe shock, and she dared not
ask anything more just then. Lucy Ellen's blush had frightened her. It
seemed to open up dizzying possibilities of change.

"But she promised--she promised," said Cecily fiercely, under her
breath.

While Cecily was changing her dress, Lucy Ellen was getting the tea
ready in the little kitchen. Now and then she broke out into singing,
but always checked herself guiltily. Cecily heard her and set her firm
mouth a little firmer.

"If a man had jilted me twenty years ago, I wouldn't be so
overwhelmingly glad to see him when he came back--especially if he had
got fat and bald-headed," she added, her face involuntarily twitching
into a smile. Cecily, in spite of her serious expression and intense
way of looking at life, had an irrepressible sense of humor.

Tea that evening was not the pleasant meal it usua