the place of a parent. Besides, don't I know
Kitty? I've almost brought her up."

"Maybe you're right. You're all so queer that perhaps you're right.
Only, do be careful, Richard. You must approach the matter very
delicately,--indirectly, you know. Girls are different, remember, from
young men, and you mustn't be blunt. Do maneuver a little, for once in
your life."

"All right, Fanny; you needn't be afraid of my doing anything awkward or
sudden. I'll go to her room pretty soon, after she is quieted down, and
have a good, calm old fatherly conversation with her."

The colonel was spared this errand; for Kitty had left some of her
things on Fanny's table, and now came back for them with a lamp in her
hand. Her averted face showed the marks of weeping; the corners of her
firm-set lips were downward bent, as if some resolution which she had
taken were very painful. This the anxious Fanny saw; and she made a
gesture to the colonel which any woman would have understood to enjoin
silence, or, at least, the utmost caution and tenderness of speech. The
colonel summoned his _finesse_ and said, cheerily, "Well, Kitty, what's
Boston been saying to you?"

Mrs. Ellison fell back upon her sofa as if shot, and placed her hand
over her face.

Kitty seemed not to hear her cousin. Having gathered up her things, she
bent an unmoved face and an unseeing gaze full upon him, and glided from
the room without a word.

"Well, upon my soul," cried the colonel, "this is a pleasant,
nightmarish, sleep-walking, Lady-Macbethish little transaction. Confound
it, Fanny this comes of your wanting me to maneuver. If you'd let me
come straight _at_ the subject,--like a _man_--"

"_Please_, Richard, don't say anything more now," pleaded Mrs. Ellison
in a broken voice. "You can't help it, I know; and I must do the best I
can, under the circumstances. Do go away for a little while, darling! O
dear!"

As for Kitty, when she had got out of the room in that phantasmal
fashion, she dimly recalled, through the mists of her own trouble, the
colonel's dismay at her so glooming upon him, and began to think that
she had used poor Dick more tragically than she need, and so began to
laugh softly to herself; but while she stood there at the entry window a
moment, laughing in the moonlight, that made her lamp-flame thin, and
painted her face with its pale lustre, Mr. Arbuton came down the attic
stairway. He was not a man of quick fancies; but to one of even slo