han I
am now, yes, I am sure I should be better." She put her face down upon
Garda's for a moment. Garda could feel how very cold it was.

Then she released her; she began moving about the room, setting the
chairs in their places, she extinguished some of the candles; she was
quite calm.

Garda stood where she had been left; her face was hidden.

Margaret crossed to one of the windows and threw open the shutters; the
cool night air rushed in, laden with the perfume of flowers. Then she
came back to Garda. "I will go with you to your room," she said; "it is
very, very late." She put her arm round her to lead her away. Garda
submitted, though still with her face hidden; they went together down
the hall.

There was a light in Garda's room. Margaret kissed her before leaving
her. "Good-night," she said.

"I am ashamed," Garda murmured.

"Ashamed?"

"Ashamed of being _glad_."

Margaret went swiftly away, she almost seemed to flee. Garda, standing
on her lighted threshold, heard her door close. Then she heard the sound
of the bolt within, as it was shot sharply forward.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

"Did you ever hear of anything so absurd?" said Aunt Katrina. "How she
will look at sea!--Those prunello gaiters of hers on deck when the wind
blows!"

"Jolly old soul," commented Lanse. He was playing solitaire, and had
paused reflectively with a card in his hand while he gazed at the
spread-out piles before him. "Jolly old soul!--I am glad she is going to
see something at last, before she dies."

"What expressions you do use, Lanse! one would think she was ninety. As
for seeing, she'll see nothing but Garda Thorne, and have her hands full
at that."

"Her eyes, you mean," said Lanse, slipping his card deftly upon a pile
which contained already its legal three, and fitting the edges
accurately as he did so to those of the card beneath, in order to cheat
himself with the greater skill.

Aunt Katrina's comments were based upon some recent tidings. Betty had
journeyed down to East Angels that afternoon in the black boat of Uncle
Cato to convey to her dearest Kate a wonderful piece of news: Garda had
suddenly decided to go abroad for the winter--to Italy, and she had
written from New York, where she was staying with Lish-er and Trude, to
beg Betty to come north immediately and go with her, "like the dear,
kind old aunt" that she was. Betty's mind, driven into confusion by this
sudden proposal, was a wild mixture of th