street or my own house, he was polite and easy
in his deportment, even gracious.

With Claude it was otherwise; he avoided me sedulously, and, although I
have reason to think he met and joined Evelyn frequently, and even by
appointment in her long walks, he never called to see her or paid her
open attentions. Yet I found that he had followed my counsels.

A day or two before he sailed for Copenhagen to join the legation in
Denmark, an exception to this rule of avoidance was made by both father
and son, who came in as had been usual with them in other days,
informally, in the evening.

This was Claude's farewell visit--a very unpleasant necessity evidently
on his part. I was unconstrained in the cordiality with which I received
both his father and himself--for it was heart-felt on this occasion. Old
feelings came back to me so vividly that night, and my own dear father
seemed so visibly recalled by the presence once more of our unbroken
circle, that I lost sight, for a season, of my wrongs and sufferings in
the memory of the past, and broke temporarily through the cloud that
oppressed me and dimmed my existence.

I saw Mr. Bainrothe gazing at me several times, in the course of his
visit, with an expression of interest and surprise.

He had expected very different manifestations, no doubt, and he told
Evelyn afterward that "no woman of thirty could have carried off matters
with a higher hand than did that chit of sixteen, Miriam Monfort."

"All that talk of yours, Miriam, about 'Hamlet,' 'Elsinore,'
'Wittenberg,' and the 'fiery Dane,' probably imposed on those two
unsophisticated men; but I saw through the whole proceeding; you were
afraid of yourself, my dear, that was evident, and ashamed, as you ought
to have been, of your capricious conduct to poor Claude, who shows,
however, as uncompromising a spirit as your own, I perceive. What _was_
the matter, Miriam? I can get nothing out of him, and I have waited,
until my patience is exhausted, for a voluntary communication from you."

"Why have you not asked me before, Evelyn?" I questioned, calmly, in
reply. "You have shown more than your usual forbearance, on this
occasion."

"My dear child, 'Least said is soonest mended,' is proverbial in
quarrels of all kinds. I have no wish to pry or play mischief-maker,
and, if Mr. Basil Bainrothe with his diplomatic talents could do nothing
to mend the difficulty, I had no right to suppose that I could succeed
better, with m