you are justified in them!"

His response came with meditative slowness and with playful eyes:
"Whenever I am justified in having such anxieties, they shall go
unconfessed."

"That relieves _my_ fears," laughed Isabel, and caught a quick hint
of trouble on Arthur's brow, though he too managed to laugh. Whereupon,
half sighing, half singing, she twined an arm in one of Ruth's, swung
round her, waved to the General as he took a seat on the elm-tree bench,
and so, passing to Arthur, changed partners.

"Let us go in," whispered Leonard to his sister, with a sudden pained
look, and instantly resumed his genial air.

But the uneasy Arthur saw his moving lips and both changes of
countenance. He saw also the look which Ruth threw toward Mrs. Morris,
where that lady and Godfrey moved slowly in conversation,--he ever so
sedate, she ever so sprightly. And he saw Isabel glance as anxiously in
the same direction. But then her eyes came to his, and under her voice,
though with a brow all sunshine, she said, "Don't look so perplexed."

"Perplexed!" he gasped. "Isabel, you're giving me anguish!"

She gleamed an injured amazement, but promptly threw it off, and when
she turned to see if Leonard or Ruth had observed it they were moving to
meet Godfrey. Mrs. Morris was joining the General under the elm.

"How have I given you pain, dear heart?" asked Isabel, as she and Arthur
took two or three slow steps apart from the rest, so turning her face
that they should see its tender kindness.

"Ah! don't ask me, my beloved!" he warily exclaimed. "It is all gone!
Oh, the heavenly wonder to hear you, Isabel Morris, you--give me loving
names! You might have answered me so differently; but your voice, your
eyes, work miracles of healing, and I am whole again."

Isabel gave again the laugh whose blithe, final sigh was always its most
winning note. Then, with tremendous gravity, she said, "You are very
indiscreet, dear, to let me know my power."

His face clouded an instant, as if the thought startled him with its
truth and value. But when she added, with yet deeper seriousness of
brow, "That's no way to tame a shrew, my love," he laughed aloud, and
peace came again with Isabel's smile.

Then--because a woman must always insist on seeing the wrong side of the
goods--she murmured, "Tell me, Arthur, what disturbed you."

"Words, Isabel, mere words of yours, which I see now were meant in
purest play. You told Leonard"--

"Leonard! What did