e as some one possessed of two ears to listen.

"Turn," he pursued. "How can you turn? I never could. I remember I took
you to drive once, ages ago, and I had to keep on in a thunder-shower,
round the five-mile curve, because I didn't dare to let you know I
couldn't cramp the wheel."

Electra remembered the day. Peter was timidly worshipful of her then,
and she had found that quite appropriate in him. She remembered the
lightning, and how satisfied she had been to go round the five-mile
curve, if only to show that she was not timid in a storm. Then it seemed
as if Peter had been unable to forego the delight of having her with
him; but now it appeared that he could absently sit there hugging his
knees and guying the occasion.

"I believe I can cramp the wheel," he was saying sunnily, out of an
absolute content in his limitations. "Only I never can remember which
rein does it. Can you turn either way, Electra, right or left, one just
as well as the other?"

Electra could not answer in that vein.

"Don't!" she said involuntarily.

In some moods Peter had a habit of not waiting for answers.

"It's beyond me how they do those things," he was saying, "drive, ride,
swim. Shouldn't you like to be a fish? I should be mighty proud."

"Shall I leave you here?" asked Electra, drawing up at his gate.

Peter came out of his childish muse. He saw Rose in the garden, and knew
it was better that Electra should find her alone.

"Yes, let me out," he said. "I'll run back and see if Osmond is where I
left him."

Electra also had seen Rose, lying in the long chair under the grape
arbor, and left her carriage at the gate. Rose was in white. A book lay
in her lap, unopened. The idle hands had clasped, and her eyes were
closed. Electra, coming upon her, felt a pang, an inexplicable one, at
her loveliness. It seemed half lassitude, not alone to challenge pity,
but a renewed and poignant interest when she should awake. At Electra's
step her eyes came open slowly, as if there were nothing in that garden
ground to move her. Then with a rush of color to the face, her eyes grew
large. Life, surprised life, poured in on her, and she had gained her
feet with a spring. Before Electra could insist upon her own decorous
distance, Rose, with a charming gesture and an insistent cordiality, had
her by both hands.

"How good of you," she was saying. "How good of you!"

"Not at all," returned Electra, with a stiff dignity she hated, as not
in