d, Miss Liz, sister of the Colonel's
angelic wife, inherited few of that departed lady's endearments. While
both had passed their girlhood in the Shenandoah, this one alone managed
to absorb and retain all the stern qualities from the surroundings of
her nativity. Now a spinster of perhaps sixty years, this firmness had
become imbedded in her nature as unalterably as the Blue Ridge rock; her
eyes and hair were as gray, and her voice--unless she were deeply
moved--as hard; also was her sense of duty as unyielding. Before her
sister's death she regularly visited Arden, and afterwards the Colonel
had insisted upon her making it a permanent home.

He paid the price for this, as he knew he would pay; but without a word,
and with as few outward signs as possible. For Miss Liz could not have
been termed in sympathy with the easy-going Colonel, nor, in her
self-righteous moods, sympathetic with any man. From long practice and
research she had at her fingers' tips the measurements of every male
transgressor from Cain to Judas Iscariot, and could work up about as
unhappy an hour for gay Lotharios as might be found this side of the
Spanish Inquisition. At any rate, Miss Liz did come to Arden, finding
rest and quiet and peace--not imparting them.

The little darkies never tired of twisting pieces of bale-wire into an
imitation of lorgnettes and airily strutting in her wake when she
visited the garden---being careful to keep their carousal well away from
the danger zone. At the same time, all who had been allowed peeps into
her gentler side were gripped with tentacles of affection as firm as was
her own relentless adherence to duty. In just one respect might Miss Liz
have been rated below par, and this was a hopeless incapacity to see
when others were teasing her. She took all in good faith when they
looked her straight in the eyes and told the most flagrant absurdities.

Brent now smiled blandly into her face and accepted the implied rebuke a
moment in silence.

"Isn't it extraordinary," he said at last, "that I guessed you would be
having on that becoming gown, and looking just this cool and
attractive?"

In spite of her stiffening shoulders and frown of extreme displeasure,
an echo of color crept slowly into her cheeks. For it is a curious fact
that, while stern and self-denying people may be found who are
impregnable to the fiercest attacks of passion, indifferent to the most
insidious lures of avarice, unmoved by the most