lost in a space of oblivion. However, sparks drift back, now and again.

This conversation over Dave's letter had no peculiar interest for either
speaker, over and above its mere face-value, which was of course far
greater for the elder of the two. Gwen deciphered it to the end,
laughing at the writer's conscientious efforts towards orthography. But
when the end came, with an attestation of affectionate grandsonship that
roused suspicions of help from seniors, so orthodox was the spelling,
she consigned the missive to its envelope after very slight revision of
points of interest. But she would talk a little about Dave too, in
deference to his other granny's solicitude about him. That was the
source of her own interest in what was otherwise a mere recollection of
an attractive _gamin_ with an even more attractive sister.

It was part of the embarrassment consequent on her own headstrong
creation of an anomalous social position, that Gwen could not decide,
nominally omnipotent as she was in her parents' absence, on telling the
servants to serve her dinner in the room Mrs. Picture occupied. Had it
not been for her suspicion of a hornet's nest at hand, she might have
dared to ordain that Mrs. Picture should be her sole guest in her own
section of the Towers, or at least that she herself should become the
table-guest of the old lady in Francis Quarles; "might have," not "would
have," because Mrs. Picture's own feelings had to be reckoned with.
Might she not be embarrassed, and overweighted by too emphatic a change
of circumstances? Indeed, had Gwen known it, she was only tranquil and
contented with things as they were in the sense in which one who passes
through a dream is tranquil and contented. It was the quietude of
bewilderment, alive to gratitude.

Uncertainty on this point co-operated with the possible hornet's nest,
and sent Gwen away to a lonely evening meal in her own rooms; for
nothing short of a suite of apartments was allotted to any inmate of
importance at the Towers. She had to submit to a banquet of a kind, if
only as a measure of conciliation to the household. But, the banquet
ended, she was free to return and take coffee with her _protegee_. She
had no objection to talking about her lover to Mrs. Picture, rather
welcoming the luxury of speaking of her marriage with him as a thing
already guaranteed by Fate.

"When we are married," said she, "I mean to have that delicious old
house we saw on the hill. Th