d
at last, breaking the pause.

"Yes."

"You would rather not tell me?"

"I will tell you later."

At this moment Mrs. Rutherford came into the room. But her nephew
remained silent so long, his eyes resting absently on Margaret's dusky
hair as she bent her head over a long seam (she seemed to like long
seams!), that at last the aunt asked him if he knew that he was growing
absent-minded.

"Absent-minded--impossible! No one has ever accused me of that before. I
have always been too present-minded; viciously so, they say."

"People change," remarked Mrs. Rutherford, with dignity. "There have
been many changes here lately."

Her voice had an undertone that suggested displeasure; the lady was
indeed in the fixed condition of finding nothing right. The state
appeared to have been caused by the absences of her niece at East
Angels. The household wheels had apparently moved on with their usual
smoothness during that interval; Mrs. Rutherford herself had appeared to
be in the enjoyment of her usual agreeably weak health; her attire had
been as becoming as ever, her hair as artistically arranged. But in
spite of all this there was the undertone. Nothing was as it should
be--that might have been the general summing up. If she leaned back in
her chair, that was not comfortable; if she sat erect, that was not
comfortable either; there were draughts everywhere, it was
insupportable--the draughts; the floors were cold; they were always
cold. She was convinced that the climate was damp; it must be, "with all
this water" about. Then, again, she was sure that it was "feverish;" it
must be, "with all this sand." The eyrie had become "tiresome," the
fragrance of the orange flowers "enervating;" as for pine barrens, she
never wished to see a pine barren again.

These things were not peevishly said, Mrs. Rutherford's well-modulated
voice was never peevish; they were said with a sort of majestic
coldness by a majestic woman who was, however, above complaints. She was
as handsome as ever; but it was curious to note how her inward
dissatisfactions had deepened lines which before had been scarcely
visible, had caused her fine profile to assume for the first time a
little of that expression to which regular profiles, cut on the majestic
scale, are liable as age creeps on--a certain hard, immovable
appearance, as though the features had been cut out of wood, as though
the changing feelings, whatever they might be, would not be able to