d anxious, awaiting an explanation.

"Mother, this is Margaret Adair," said Wyvis, as quietly as if his
mother knew all that was involved in that very simple formula. He was
still holding the girl by the hand and gazing in his former rapt manner
into her face. It was not the look of a lover, to Janetta's eye, half so
much as the worship of a saint. Margaret embodied for Wyvis Brand the
highest aspirations, the purest dreams of his youth.

As to Margaret, Janetta thought that she was looking exquisitely lovely.
Her thinness added to the impression of ethereal beauty; there was a
delicacy about her appearance which struck the imagination. Her color
fluctuated; her eyes shone like stars; and her whole frame seemed a
little tremulous, as if she were shaken by some strange and powerful
emotion to her very soul. Her broad-brimmed straw hat, white dress, and
long tan gloves belonged, as Janetta knew, only to her ordinary attire
when no visitors were to be seen; but simplicity of dress always seemed
to garnish Margaret's beauty, and to throw it into the strongest
possible relief. She was sufficiently striking in aspect to frighten
poor, timid Mrs. Brand, who was never happy when she found herself in
the company of "fashionable" people. But it was with a perfectly simple
and almost child-like manner that Margaret drew her finger away from
Wyvis' clasp and went up to his mother, holding out both hands as if in
appeal for help.

"I am Margaret," she said. "I ought not to have come; but what could I
do? They are going to take me away from the Court to-morrow, and I
could not go without seeing you and Wyvis first."

"Wyvis?" repeated Mrs. Brand, blankly. She had not taken Margaret's
hands, but now she extended her right hand in a stiff, lifeless fashion,
which looked like anything but a welcome. "I do not know--I do not
understand----"

"It is surely easy enough to understand," said Wyvis, vehemently. "She
loves me--she has promised to be my wife--and you must love her, too,
for my sake, as well as for her own."

"Won't you love me a little?" said Margaret, letting her eyes rest
pleadingly on Mrs. Brand's impassive face. She was not accustomed to
being met in this exceedingly unresponsive manner. Wyvis made a slight
jesture of impatience, which his mother perfectly understood. She tried,
in her difficult, frozen way, to say something cordial.

"I am very pleased to see you," she faltered. "You must excuse me if I
did not und