e had very
strict ideas about the best ways of doing everything. So it happened
that when she was at last shown into the office of the McIntyres, Warren
Reyburn who had traveled to Boston on the sleeper of the same train that
she had taken the night before, was just arising from an earnest
conference with the two men. With her first glance, as the three emerged
from the inner office, Candace saw that the two elder gentlemen were
much disturbed and it flitted through her mind that she had come at an
inopportune moment. Then her quick eye took in the younger man and her
little alert head cocked to one side with a questioning attitude. Where
had she seen him before? Candace had the kind of a mind that kept people
and events card-indexed even to the minutest detail, and it didn't take
many seconds for her to place Warren Reyburn back in the church at the
wedding, standing against the wall with his arms folded. She had noticed
him particularly because he was so courteous to a little old lady who
came in too late to get a seat. She had studied him as he stood there,
waiting for the wedding march, and she had thought how handsome he
looked and how fine it would have been if her wee Betty had been getting
a man like that in place of the weak-faced Bessemer Hutton. She had
watched to see who he was with, and felt deep satisfaction when she
noticed him lean over and speak to Mrs. Bryce Cochrane as if he belonged
to her. He wasn't her husband, because she knew Mr. Cochrane, who had
been a favorite with Mr. Stanhope and much at the house. This man might
be Mrs. Cochrane's brother "or the likes," and she had pleased herself
watching him till Betty arrived and took all her thoughts. So now she
stood with her little round head in its hectic hat tilted interestedly
to one side, watching, ears on the keen to catch any word, for all the
world like a "bit brown sparrow" saucily perched on another man's
window, where it really had no right to be.

At last one of the McIntyre's shook hands gravely with the younger man,
and the other one attended him to the door, talking in low tones. The
McIntyre thus set at liberty, turned questioningly toward the stranger,
who was not slow in getting to her feet and coming forward.

"You will maybe be Mr. James McIntyre?" she asked, lifting her sea-blue
eyes set in her apple-red face, and fixing her firm little lips in
dignity. Candace was a servant and knew her place, but she felt the
importance of her