forget
in the past, no one thing the loss of which could alter her in the
least, that little monkey of a daughter of mine! And there are many,
many things I should like to see the last of." From which speech
Fenwick derived an impression that the little monkey, the vulgar
child, had come back warm and living and welcome to the speaker's
mind, and had driven away some mists of night, some uglinesses that
hung about it. How he wished he could ask: "Was one of them her
father?" That was not practicable. But it was something of that sort,
clearly. His mind could not admit the idea of a haunting remorse, a
guilty conscience of an action of her own, in the memory of the woman
who spoke to him. He was too loyal to her for that. Besides, the
wording of her speech made no such supposition necessary. Fenwick's
answer to it fell back on abstractions--the consolation a daughter
must be, and so forth.

"There she is!" said her mother; and then added, as perturbation
without heralded Miss Sally's approach: "I will tell you what I meant
some other time." For there she was, no doubt of it, wild with
excitement to report the splendid success of the great sestet, the
production of which had been the event of the musical gathering she
had come from. And you know as well as we do how it is when youth and
high spirits burst in upon the sober stay-at-homes, intoxicated with
music and lights and supper and too many people talking at once.
Sally's eyebrows and teeth alone would have been enough to set all the
birds singing in the dullest coppices decorum ever planted, let alone
the tales she had to tell of all the strange and wonderful things that
had come to pass at the Erskine Peels', who were the givers of the
party, and always did things on such a scale.

"And where do you think, mother, Mrs. Erskine Peel gets all those
good-looking young men from that come to her parties? Why, from the
Stores, of course. Just fancy!... How do I know? Why, because I talked
to one of them for ever so long, and made him tell me all about it. I
detected him, and told him so straight off. How did I recognise him?
Why, of course, because he's that young man that came here about the
letter. Oh, _you_ know, Mr. Fenwick! Gracious me, how slow you are!
The young man that brought you the letter to translate. Rather tall,
dark eyes."

"Oh yes, certainly. I remember him quite well. Well, I expect he made
a very good young man for a small tea-party."

"Of course