o not imagine anything about it; I do not think it bad," Hubert
interposed rather hurriedly. "You have changed very much. But have we
not agreed to let old histories alone?"

"I did not intend to revive them. I meant only to assure you that Enid
has met with the tenderest care and guidance from me--as far, at least,
as it lay in me to give it to her, and whenever she would accept it."

"You make two very important reservations."

"I know I do, but I cannot help it. I was never devotedly fond of
children, and I was once Enid's governess. I do not think that she ever
forgets that fact."

"Well, come to the point," said Hubert, rather impatiently. "What is the
matter with her now?"

Florence laughed softly, and eyed him over her fan. She always used a
fan, even in the depth of winter--and indeed her boudoir was so
luxuriously warm and fragrant that it did not there seem out of place.
She was wearing a loose tea-gown of peacock-blue plush over a satin
petticoat of the palest rose-color--a daring combination which she had
managed to harmonise extremely well--and the fan which she now held to
her mouth was of pale rose-colored feathers. As Hubert looked at her and
waited for his answer, he was struck by two things--first by the
choiceness and beauty of her surroundings, and secondly by the fatigued
expression of her eyes, which were set in hollows of purple shadows, and
almost veiled by lids which had the faintly reddened tint which comes of
wakefulness at night.

"I shall next ask what is the matter with you," he said. "You really do
not look well, Florence!"

"Do I not?" She laid down her fan, took up a hand-glass set in silver
from a table at her side, and studied her face in the mirror for a few
seconds with some intentness. "You are right," she said, when she put it
down; "I am growing hatefully old and haggard and ugly. What can one do?
Would a winter in the South give me back my good looks, do you think?
Perhaps I had better consult a doctor when I go up to town. I am not so
old yet that I need lose all my 'beauty,' as people used to call it, am
I?"

"Why do you care so much?" Hubert asked. He fancied that there was
something deeper in her anxiety than the mere vanity of a pretty woman
whose youth was fast fleeting away.

"Why does every woman care? For my husband's sake, of course," she
answered, with a slight laugh, but a look of carking care and pain in
her haggard eyes. "If I leave off looking pretty and