ss of paying their hostess a compliment,
and of giving themselves a little more pleasure.

Finally, they made the day, day; and the night, night. Such gatherings
broke up about eleven o'clock; then the girls went home unwearied, to
sleep, and morning found them rosy and happy, already wondering who
would give them the next dance.

CHAPTER II

ADAM VEDDER'S TROUBLE

... they do not trust their tongues alone
But speak a language of their own;
Convey a libel in a frown,
And wink a reputation down;
Or by the tossing of a fan,
Describe the lady and the man.--SWIFT

It is good to be merry and wise,
It is good to be honest and true,
It is well to be off with the old love
Before you are on with the new.

Boris did not remain long in the home port. It was drawing near to
Lent, and this was a sacred term very highly regarded by the citizens
of this ancient cathedral town. Of course in the Great Disruption the
National Episcopal Church had suffered heavy loss, but Lent was a
circumstance of the Soul, so near and dear to its memory, that even
those disloyal to their Mother Church could not forget or ignore it.
In some cases it was secretly more faithfully observed than ever
before; then its penitential prayers became intensely pathetic in
their loneliness. For these self-bereft souls could not help
remembering the days when they went up with the multitude to keep the
Holy Fast in the House of their God.

Rahal Ragnor had never kept it. It had been only a remnant of popery
to her. Long before the Free Kirk had been born, she and all her
family had been Dissenters of some kind or other. And yet her life and
her home were affected by this Episcopal "In Memoriam" in a great
number of small, dominating ways, so that in the course of years she
had learned to respect a ceremonial that she did not endorse. For she
knew that no one kept Lent with a truer heart than Conall Ragnor, and
that the Lenten services in the cathedral interfered with his business
to an extent nothing purely temporal would have been permitted to do.

So, after the little dance given to Boris, there was a period of
marked quietness in Kirkwall. It was as if some mighty Hand had been
laid across the strings of Life and softened and subdued all their
reverberations. There was no special human influence exerted for this
purpose, yet no one could deny the presence of some unseen, unusual
element.

"Every day seems like Sabbat