r
visitors. For a while she took Cicely on her daily rides; but she soon
wearied of adapting her hunter's stride to the pace of the little girl's
pony, and Cicely was once more given over to the coachman's care.

Then came snow and a long frost, and Bessy grew restless at her
imprisonment, and grumbled that there was no way of keeping well in a
winter climate which made regular exercise impossible.

"Why not build a squash-court?" Blanche Carbury proposed; and the two
fell instantly to making plans under the guidance of Ned Bowfort and
Westy Gaines. As the scheme developed, various advisers suggested that
it was a pity not to add a bowling-alley, a swimming-tank and a
gymnasium; a fashionable architect was summoned from town, measurements
were taken, sites discussed, sketches compared, and engineers consulted
as to the cost of artesian wells and the best system for heating the
tank.

Bessy seemed filled with a feverish desire to carry out the plan as
quickly as possible, and on as large a scale as even the architect's
invention soared to; but it was finally decided that, before signing the
contracts, she should run over to New Jersey to see a building of the
same kind on which a sporting friend of Mrs. Carbury's had recently
lavished a fortune.

It was on this errand that the two ladies, in company with Westy Gaines
and Bowfort, had departed on the day which found Justine restlessly
measuring the length of the library. She and Mrs. Ansell had the house
to themselves; and it was hardly a surprise to her when, in the course
of the afternoon, Mrs. Ansell, after a discreet pause on the threshold,
advanced toward her down the long room.

Since the night of her return Justine had felt sure that Mrs. Ansell
would speak; but the elder lady was given to hawk-like circlings about
her subject, to hanging over it and contemplating it before her wings
dropped for the descent.

Now, however, it was plain that she had resolved to strike; and Justine
had a sense of relief at the thought. She had been too long isolated in
her anxiety, her powerlessness to help; and she had a vague hope that
Mrs. Ansell's worldly wisdom might accomplish what her inexperience had
failed to achieve.

"Shall we sit by the fire? I am glad to find you alone," Mrs. Ansell
began, with the pleasant abruptness that was one of the subtlest
instruments of her indirection; and as Justine acquiesced, she added,
yielding her slight lines to the luxurious dept