ly
natural; her glance and her smile, while not so ready, nor so promptly
hospitable as those of most girls of her age, seemed to him to possess a
quality which he had come to consider almost extinct--the quality of
frank, undisturbed sincerity.

"I sometimes regret that I described to my daughter so often the aspects
of my northern home," said Mrs. Thorne. "It was a pleasure to me at the
time (it had been a great change for me, you know), and I did not
realize that they were becoming exaggerated to her, these
descriptions--more beautiful than the reality. For she has dwelt too
much upon them; by contrast she over-estimates them. The South, too, has
its beautiful aspects: that we must allow."

Winthrop fancied that he detected a repressed plaintiveness in her tone.
"She thinks her daughter cruel to keep on beating down so ruthlessly her
poor little hope," was his thought. Then he answered the spoken
sentence: "As she has never seen these things for herself, your
descriptions must have been vivid."

"No; it is her imagination that is that."

"True--I have myself had an example of her imagination in her remarks
upon agriculture."

Garda laughed. "I shall say no more about agriculture, blue sky, or
anything else," she declared.

"You leave me, then, to take care of myself?"

"You do not need my assistance, I never waste it."

"I should have pretended to be quite helpless! That's the second mistake
I have made this afternoon. If I had only let it be supposed that my
health was delicate, Mrs. Thorne would have been much more interested in
me."

"Oh no, Mr. Winthrop," said his hostess, earnestly; "you are quite
mistaken. Good health is in itself full of the deepest interest, I am
sure, and especially at the present day, when it is so singularly rare.
I am most glad you possess it--most glad indeed."

"I possess enough of it, at any rate, to go over the place, if you will
be so kind," said Winthrop. "You know you promised me that pleasure some
day, and why not this afternoon? There is a delightful breeze."

Mrs. Thorne dropped her eyes to the tips of her black cloth slippers,
visible beneath the skirt of her gown. These little shoes one could
scarcely fail to see, since the skirt, which was neatness itself in its
decent black folds, was rather scanty and short. Their age and well-worn
thinness, the skilful mending of their worst places, the new home-made
bindings, the fresh ribbon bows bravely tied, told a story