rather pleased with him, I confess,
just now.'

Milly looked up at her father gratefully. Poor child! how innocently
and unconsciously she betrayed her secret! and how little she
thought of the jealous eyes that were watching her! I saw Julian
Stormont's face darken with an angry look, and I knew that he had
already discovered the state of Milly's feelings in relation to
Angus Egerton.

He was still with us when Mr. Egerton came to dinner two days later.
I shall never forget that evening. The day was oppressively warm,
with that dry sultry heat of which there had been so much during the
latter part of the summer; and as the afternoon advanced, the air
grew still, that palpable stillness which so often comes before a
thunder-storm. Milly had been full of life and vivacity all day,
flitting from room to room with a kind of joyous restlessness. She
took unusual pains with her toilette for so simple a party, and came
into my room looking like Titania in her gauzy white dress, with
half-blown blush-roses in her hair, and more roses in a bouquet at
her waist.

Mr. Egerton came in a little later than the party from the Rectory,
and after shaking hands with Mr. Darrell, made his way at once to
the place where Milly and I were sitting.

'Any more sketching since I was here last, Miss Darrell?' he asked.

'No. I have been doing nothing for the last day or two.'

'Do you know I have been thinking of your work in that way a good
deal since I called here. I am stronger in criticism than in
execution, you know. I think I was giving you a little lecture on
your shortcomings, wasn't I?'

'Yes; but you left off so abruptly in the middle of it, that I don't
fancy it was very profitable to me,' Milly answered in rather a
piqued tone.

'Did I really? O yes, I remember. I was quite startled by Mrs.
Darrell's appearance. She is so surprisingly like a lady I knew a
long time ago.'

'That is rather a curious coincidence,' I said.

'How a coincidence?' asked Mr. Egerton.

'Mrs. Darrell said almost the same thing about your portrait when we
were at Cumber one day. It reminded her of some one she had known
long ago.'

'What an excellent memory you have for small events, Miss Crofton!'
said a voice close behind me.

It was Mrs. Darrell's. She had come across the room towards us,
unobserved by me, at any rate. Whether Angus Egerton had seen her or
not, I do not know. He rose to shake hands with her, and then went
on talking abo