ORD.

"P. S.--There's a director's meeting at three. Come down and
we'll settle all quarrels."

To this the Hon. John Garcide telegraphed: "All right," and hurriedly
prepared to escort his sister and Miss Castle to the mid-day express for
Sagamore Hills.

II

Miss Castle usually rose with the robins, when there were any in the
neighborhood. There were plenty on the lawn around the Sagamore Club
that dewy June morning, chirping, chirking, trilling, repeating their
endless arias from tree and gate-post. And through the outcry of the
robins, the dry cackle of the purple grackles, and the cat-bird's whine
floated earthward the melody of the golden orioles.

Miss Castle, fresh from the bath, breakfasted in her own rooms with an
appetite that astonished her.

She was a wholesome, fresh-skinned girl, with a superb body, limbs a
trifle heavy in the strict classical sense, straight-browed, blue-eyed,
and very lovely and Greek.

Pensively she ate her toast, tossing a few crumbs at the robins;
pensively she disposed of two eggs, a trout, and all the chocolate, and
looked into the pitcher for more cream.

The swelling bird-music only intensified the deep, sweet country silence
which brooded just beyond the lawn's wet limits; she saw the flat river
tumbling in the sunlight; she saw the sky over all, its blue mystery
untroubled by a cloud.

"I love all that," she said, dreamily, to her maid behind her. "Never
mind my hair now; I want the wind to blow it."

The happy little winds of June, loitering among the lilacs, heard; and
they came and blew her bright hair across her eyes, puff after puff of
perfumed balm, and stirred the delicate stuff that clung to her, and she
felt their caress on her bare feet.

"I mean to go and wade in that river," she said to her maid. "Dress me
very quickly."

But when she was dressed the desire for childish things had passed away,
and she raised her grave eyes to the reflected eyes in the mirror,
studying them in silence.

"After all," she said, aloud, "I am young enough to have found
happiness--if they had let me.... The sunshine is full of it,
out-doors.... I could have found it.... I was not meant for men....
Still ... it is all in the future yet. I will learn not to be afraid."

She made a little effort to smile at herself in the mirror, but her
courage could not carry her as far as that. So, with a quick, quaint
gesture of adieu, she turned and walked rapidly out into th