ced the old sensation of relief!

He shut the garden gate, crossed the road, and found the grille just
closing behind a slim white figure. He started, for it was Cecily; but
even in his surprise he was conscious of wondering how he could have
ever mistaken the stranger for her. She appeared startled too; she
looked pale and abstracted. Could she have been a witness of his strange
interview?

Her first sentence dispelled the idea.

"I suppose you were in the garden?" she said, with a certain timidity.
"I didn't go there--it seemed so close and stuffy--but walked a little
down the lane."

A moment before he would have eagerly told her his adventure; but in the
presence of her manifest embarrassment his own increased. He concluded
to tell her another time. He murmured vaguely that he had been looking
for her in the garden, yet he had a flushing sense of falsehood in his
reserve; and they passed silently along the corridor and entered the
patio together. She lit the hanging lamp mechanically. She certainly
WAS pale; her slim hand trembled slightly. Suddenly her eyes met his,
a faint color came into her cheek, and she smiled. She put up her hand
with a girlish gesture towards the back of her head.

"What are you looking at? Is my hair coming down?"

"No," hesitated Dick, "but--I--thought--you were looking just a LITTLE
pale."

An aggressive ray slipped into her blue eyes.

"Strange! I thought YOU were. Just now at the grille you looked as if
the roses hadn't agreed with you."

They both laughed, a little nervously, and Conchita brought the
chocolate. When Aunt Viney came from the drawing-room she found the two
young people together, and Cecily in a gale of high spirits.

She had had SUCH a wonderfully interesting walk, all by herself, alone
on the plain. It was really so queer and elfish to find one's self where
one could see nothing above or around one anywhere but stars. Stars
above one, to right and left of one, and some so low down they seemed
as if they were picketed on the plain. It was so odd to find the horizon
line at one's very feet, like a castaway at sea. And the wind! it seemed
to move one this way and that way, for one could not see anything,
and might really be floating in the air. Only once she thought she saw
something, and was quite frightened.

"What was it?" asked Dick quickly.

"Well, it was a large black object; but--it turned out only to be a
horse."

She laughed, although she had evid