out her well-formed chin
which was sufficient answer to the second question, while he could not
but think that the best safeguard against the danger of bitterness lay
in her very evident love and loyalty to her father.

Erica in the meantime sat stroking her cat Friskarina, and wondering a
little who her visitor could be. She liked him very much, and could
not help responding to the bright kindly eyes which seemed to plead
for confidence; though he was such an entire stranger she found herself
quite naturally opening out her heart to him.

"I am to take notes at my father's meeting tonight," she said, breaking
the silence, "and perhaps write the account of it afterward, too, and
there's such a delightfully funny man coming to speak on the other
side."

"Mr. Randolph, is it not?"

"Yes, a sort of male Mrs. Malaprop. Oh, such fun!" and at the
remembrance of some past encounter, Erica's eyes positively danced with
laughter. But the next minute she was very grave.

"I came to speak to Mr. Raeburn about this evening," said Charles
Osmond. "Do you know if he has heard of a rumor that this Mr. Randolph
has hired a band of roughs to interrupt the meeting?"

Erica made an indignant exclamation.

"Perhaps that was what the telegram was about," she continued, after
a moment's thought. "We found it here when we came in. Father said
nothing, but went out very quickly to answer it. Oh! Now we shall have a
dreadful time of it, I suppose, and perhaps he'll get hurt again. I did
hope they had given up that sort of thing."

She looked so troubled that Charles Osmond regretted he had said
anything, and hastened to assure her that what he had heard was the
merest rumor, and very possibly not true.

"I am afraid," she said, "it is too bad not to be true."

It struck Charles Osmond that that was about the saddest little sentence
he had ever heard.

Partly wishing to change the subject, party from real interest, he made
some remark about a lovely little picture, the only one in the room; its
frame was lighted up by the flickering blaze, and even in the imperfect
light he could see that the subject was treated in no ordinary way.
It was a little bit of the Thames far away from London, with a bank
of many-tinted trees on one side, and out beyond a range of low hills,
purple in the evening light. In the sky was a rosy sunset glow, melted
above into saffron color, and this was reflected in the water, gilding
and mellowing the foregr