a poor opinion of her friend's
eloquence, she took up the tale herself. "But Jamie Waring is well
connected, madam; his uncle was our clergyman, the Reverend Harold
Waring, curate of St. Lucy's, in Berwick Street, and----"

"Harold Waring! Why, he was a dear old friend of mine!" Mrs. Beaton was
interrupted in her turn, and it was the man in flannels who cut her
story short. "If I had only known that Waring had left a nephew alone in
the world I should have claimed him," he went on, with a ring of
determination in his voice. "My name is Wayne--Arnold Wayne--you may
have heard Mr. Waring speak of me?"

"Yes, sir, we have," Mrs. Beaton replied. "Here is Miss Kilner, who
found your name in poor Miss Neale's manuscript. Miss Neale, sir, was
engaged to be married to Mr. Waring."

"He wrote to tell me of his engagement," said Arnold Wayne, looking at
Elsie. "What a complicated business this is! It seems that we each have
an interest in this young gentleman," he added, with a smile at the fair
lady.

"Mr. Wayne!" exclaimed Jamie's protectress, in her silvery voice. "We
were to have met at Rushbrook last October, and you didn't come. I was
staying with your cousins the Danforths. I am Mrs. Verdon."

"I'm delighted to meet you at last," he said cordially. "Mary and Lily
were always talking about you. Isn't all this extraordinary? There never
was anything like it in a three-volume novel!"

Then they both laughed with a comfortable air of old acquaintanceship,
and Elsie suddenly had a sense of being left out in the cold.

CHAPTER X

_LONELINESS_

"While I! I sat alone and watched;
My lot in life, to live alone,
In mine own world of interests,
Much felt, but little shown."
--CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

Yes; Elsie felt as if she were left out in the cold, and she looked as
if she felt it.

There are women to whom nature has granted the gift of silent emotion.
They have mobile faces, changeful eyes, soft lips, which express joy or
desolation naturally, and with the charm of perfect simplicity and
truth. These women keep their youth a long time; every experience of
life comes to them with the freshness of a first feeling; they retain
the capacity to rejoice and suffer to the very end of their days. Men
like them, because they find them real, and because these impressionable
characters have the attraction of varying often. Anything is more
tolerable than monotony.

Arnold