er mire of embarrassment. The meal was spoiled for
her, however; the mortifying recollection of her mysterious blunder
conspired with her curiosity to banish appetite. As soon as possible
after tea she decoyed Mrs. Frederick out into the garden and in the
dahlia walk solemnly demanded the reason of it all.

Mrs. Frederick indulged in a laugh which put the mettle of her festal
brown silk seams to the test.

"My dear Cecilia, it was SO amusing," she said, a little patronizingly.

"But WHY!" cried Mrs. George, resenting the patronage and the mystery.
"What was so dreadful in what I said? Or so funny? And WHO is this
Romney Penhallow who mustn't be spoken to?"

"Oh, Romney is one of the Charlottetown Penhallows," explained Mrs.
Frederick. "He is a lawyer there. He is a first cousin of Lucinda's and
a second of George's--or is he? Oh, bother! You must go to Uncle John
if you want the genealogy. I'm in a chronic muddle concerning Penhallow
relationship. And, as for Romney, of course you can speak to him about
anything you like except Lucinda. Oh, you innocent! To ask him if he
didn't think Lucinda was looking well! And right before her, too! Of
course he thought you did it on purpose to tease him. That was what made
him so savage and sarcastic."

"But WHY?" persisted Mrs. George, sticking tenaciously to her point.

"Hasn't George told you?"

"No," said George's wife in mild exasperation. "George has spent most
of his time since we were married telling me odd things about the
Penhallows, but he hasn't got to that yet, evidently."

"Why, my dear, it is our family romance. Lucinda and Romney are in love
with each other. They have been in love with each other for fifteen
years and in all that time they have never spoken to each other once!"

"Dear me!" murmured Mrs. George, feeling the inadequacy of mere
language. Was this a Penhallow method of courtship? "But WHY?"

"They had a quarrel fifteen years ago," said Mrs. Frederick patiently.
"Nobody knows how it originated or anything about it except that Lucinda
herself admitted it to us afterwards. But, in the first flush of her
rage, she told Romney that she would never speak to him again as long
as she lived. And HE said he would never speak to her until she spoke
first--because, you see, as she was in the wrong she ought to make the
first advance. And they never have spoken. Everybody in the connection,
I suppose, has taken turns trying to reconcile them, but nobody has