hat had been lying open on the table.

"It is very beautiful weather," she remarked--there was no tremor about
_her_ fingers, at all events, as she made secure the brooch that
fastened the simple morning-dress at the neck, "only it seems a pity to
throw away such beautiful sunshine on withered gardens and bare trees.
We have some fine chrysanthemums, though; but I confess I don't like
chrysanthemums myself. They come at a wrong time. They look unnatural.
They only remind one of what is gone. If we are to have winter, we ought
to have it out and out. The chrysanthemums always seem to me as if they
were making a pretence--trying to make you believe that there was still
some life left in the dead garden."

It was very pretty talk, all this about chrysanthemums, uttered in the
low-toned, and gentle, and musical voice; but somehow there was a
burning impatience in his heart, and a bitter sense of hopelessness, and
he felt as though he would cry out in his despair. How could he sit
there and listen to talk about chrysanthemums? His hands were tightly
clasped together; his heart was throbbing quickly; there was a humming
in his ears, as though something there refused to hear about
chrysanthemums.

"I--I saw you at the theatre last night," said he.

Perhaps it was the abruptness of the remark that caused the quick blush.
She lowered her eyes. But all the same she said, with perfect
self-possession,--

"Did you like the piece?"

And he, too: was he not determined to play the part of an ordinary
visitor?

"I am not much of a judge," said he, lightly. "The drawing-room scene is
very pretty. It is very like a drawing-room. I suppose those are real
curtains, and real pictures?"

"Oh yes, it is all real furniture," said she.

Thereafter, for a second, blank silence. Neither dared to touch that
deeper stage question that lay next their hearts. But when Keith
Macleod, in many a word of timid suggestion, and in the jesting letter
he sent her from Castle Dare, had ventured upon that dangerous ground,
it was not to talk about the real furniture of a stage drawing-room.
However, was not this an ordinary morning call? His manner--his
speech--everything said so but the tightly-clasped hands, and perhaps
too a certain intensity of look in the eyes, which seemed anxious and
constrained.

"Papa, at least, is proud of our chrysanthemums," said Miss White,
quickly getting away from the stage question. "He is in the garden now.
Will