her day, he told
her, and be good meanwhile.

Curran became thoughtful, and the women irritable after he had gone.
Edith felt that her instincts had no longer a value in the market. In
this wretched Endicott affair striking disappointment met the most
brilliant endeavors. Sonia made ready to return to her hotel. Dolorously
the Currans paid her the last courtesies, waiting for the word which
would end the famous search for her Horace.

"I have been thinking the matter over," she said sweetly, "and I have
thought out a plan, not in your line of course, which I shall see to at
once. I think it worth while to look through California for points in
the life of this interesting young man, Mr. Dillon."

When the door closed on her, Edith began to shriek in hysterical
laughter.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE HEART OF HONORA.

While Edith urged the search for Endicott, the little world to be
horrified by her success enjoyed itself north and south as the season
suggested, and the laws of fashion permitted. At the beginning of June,
Anne settled herself comfortably for the summer in a roomy farmhouse,
overlooking Lake Champlain and that particular island of Valcour, which
once witnessed the plucky sea-fight and defeat of dare-devil Arnold.
Only Honora accompanied her, but at the close of the month Louis, the
deacon, and Mrs. Doyle Grahame joined them; and after that the whole
world came at odd times, with quiet to-day and riot to-morrow. Honora,
the center of interest, the storm-center, as we call it in these days,
turned every eye in her direction with speculative interest. Would she
retire to the convent, or find her vocation in the world? She had more
than fulfilled her father's wish that she remain in secular life for a
year. Almost two years had passed. He could not reproach her from his
grave.

One divine morning she came upon the natural stage which had been the
scene of a heart-drama more bitter to her than any sorrow. Walking alone
in the solemn woods along the lake shore, the path suddenly ended on a
rocky terrace, unshaded by trees, and directly over the water. Raspberry
bushes made an enclosure there, in the center of which the stumps of two
trees held a rough plank to make a seat. A stony beach curved inward
from this point, the dark woods rose behind, and the soft waters made
music in the hollows of the rock beneath her feet. Delightful with the
perfume of the forest, the placid shores of Valcour, sun, and flowe