rrie,
she informed Hen, wanted her particularly for the Lenten weeks,
promising that they would spend the sober penitential season in a
hilarious round of theatres, restaurants, and shops. It appeared that
this promising invitation had come only that morning, and Cally
described it as a direct answer to prayer.

"Goodness, Cally! You talk as if you lived in a special kind of
purgatory," said Hen. "I don't know anybody that has a better time
than you."

"Is an everlasting round of gaieties, all exactly alike, your idea of a
perfect time? What is the point or meaning of it all?" demanded Cally,
the philosopher. "The whole trouble with me," she added, explanatorily,
"is that I haven't budged from home in three months, and I'm simply
bored deaf and dumb."

Hen might have replied that she hadn't budged for three years, but what
was the use? She said instead: "When're you going to sail for
Europe. May?"

"It remains to be seen whether we sail at all or not," answered
Carlisle, with a sudden mocking little laugh. "Mamma talks several times
a day of cancelling our passage and shipping me off to Aunt Helen's farm
for the summer. She's been tremendously droll with me of late...."

Droll, of course, was only the girl's derisive euphemism. The truth was
that mamma's attitude, since hearing of the extraordinary
rupture,--which her daughter refused either to explain or amend
instantly,--had been nothing short of violent. Jangling scenes recurred
daily.... Perhaps, indeed, it was mamma's relentless pressure that had
brought about the gradual shifting, amounting to a total revolution, in
Cally's own attitude. More probably, though, it was only the inevitable
resurgence of her own sane fundamental purposes, temporarily swept away
by purblind passion.

It is one thing to kick out your symbol of happiness in a burst of
senseless rage. It is quite another to learn to live day by day without
it.... Why, indeed, should she not yield obedience to poor mamma--at the
least greet Canning's return with some mark of forgiveness, a tiny
olive-branch?...

Henrietta Cooney's voice spoke, singularly apropos:

"You don't seem to be the only one who's been bored lately, Cally--that
ought to comfort you! Chas and I saw Mr. Canning yesterday, and he
looked bluer than indigo. Mad, too!"

Surprise betrayed Carlisle into a naked display of interest. Turning
with a little jump, she stared at Hen with a kind of breathless
rigidity.

"You saw _Mr