smissed. Lucy turned quickly and grasped at
Camille.

"Say, I don't know where to go nor how to get at him. I don't know where
to write to him, even. If you'd tell Miss Lav'lotte, don't you b'lieve
she'd go with me, or something? She's so kind."

"Of course she would. I'll tell her."

"And see here, you--you won't tell anybody else?" speaking low and
hurriedly for the children were at the door.

"Tell! Of course not! But Lucy, what ails you is you have been so used
to care and sorrow that you don't dare to catch the least ray of
sunshine that comes to you. Now, that's all wrong. You ought to talk
with my mother. Come and see us some day, on the knoll, will you? Come
soon."

"Oh may I? How lovely to ask me!" Lucy's face fairly shone at the
thought. "Good by," she whispered, fairly squeezing Camille's little
brown paw, "good-by. I'll come, sure," and dropping the thick veil to
hide smiles rather than tears, she glided out between the ranks of
impatient children, who looked after her with awed interest.

That evening Camille, full of frank curiosity, tripped across to the
other house, tapping lightly on the side door opening upon the driveway,
and entered without waiting for admission. The room she stepped into was
unlighted, except from the hall beyond, but crossing both she came into
a delightful little apartment, softly illumined with lamps which shed a
rosy light through their silken shades. A couple of logs burned on the
brass andirons of the fireplace with an aromatic odor that suggested
deep pine woods.

Before them a couch was drawn, upon which Joyce nestled lazily amid a
nest of pillows. At a table, little withdrawn, Ellen was reading aloud
from a late magazine, the rosy light making her look almost young and
handsome to-night. She withdrew, after a word or two of greeting, while
Joyce without stirring, said drowsily,

"I know you won't ask me to get up, Camille; you are too good-natured.
Come, take this easy little rocker and tell me all you know."

"No thank you. I've come to put you to the question, my lady! Who told
you you could go off to the city with that handsome George Dalton when I
had given up the trip just because I hated to go alone?"

"Had you? What a pity we did not know!" The lamps made Joyce's cheeks a
lovely color. "Of course our business would have been a bore to you, but
we could have met for a nice time somewhere, later."

"How do you know it would have been a bore? And what was '