couraged," Lyssie persisted, still sympathizing with Jones, "to lose a place just because"

"Oh, those people don't mind," Cecil interrupted her carelessly. "Come! let's go to the nursery. Molly is delicious. Have you seen her?"

The visit to the nursery delayed supper, but that did not trouble Mrs. Shore. She brought Molly downstairs with her, and kept her at her side at the table, feeding her with lumps of sugar dipped in coffee, to the child's delight, and her father's great but reticent annoyance.

Mr. Carey's keen eyes noticed the annoyance in spite of the reticence. "Funny match," he thought, glancing at his hostess across his wineglass; and he reflected that the other sister was "more like Shore."

"The other," sitting opposite him, was defending herself from a charge of neglect.

"It's very ungracious in you," Mrs. Shore was saying, "to leave me the moment you 've had your supper!"

"You know I'd like to stay, Ceci," the girl pleaded, "but I don't want to leave mother alone all the evening. I was here in the morning, you know.”

"You rushed home to give her her dinner," interrupted Cecil gayly; "I am certain of that! Molly, will you be as good to mamma, when she is old and fussy, as aunt Lyssie is to grandmamma?" Alicia's color rose a little. "Of course I went home; I wanted some dinner myself. But I was here all the afternoon, and I could n't be away in the evening, too?" she ended anxiously.

And Roger Carey, listening, said to himself again, "She's a mighty nice little thing." But he laughed, notwithstanding his appreciation of her character, when Mrs. Shore declared drolly, "Oh, Lyssie, your especial form of selfishness is unselfishness!"

"At least it is an unusual form," Philip said, smiling; "but anything unusual is very bad, Lys!"

And then the group about the table broke up, and Alicia said she must go home. Cecil reproached her, and her brother enticed her, and Mr. Carey said that, as that, as an unprejudiced outsider, he must say he thought she was neglecting her family. But she was charmingly firm; so Philip and his guest escorted her to her door, through a mist of June moonlight, full of the scent of dewy leaves and blossoming grass.

Cecil, left alone upon the porch, cuddled Molly in her arms, and thought how tired she was with her journey, and how delightful it would be to have nothing whatever to do for the next three months.

The summer night fell like a perfumed curtain across the valley; the dusk had a certain richness of texture, as though one might lay one's face against it and feel its softness. From the pool below the terraces came the bell-like clang of frogs. Katydids answered each other in the tulip-trees, and the shrill, monotonous note of the cicada rose and fell, and rose again. Molly had fallen asleep, and Cecil felt the little limbs relax, and the head grow heavy upon her arm; she looked down at her, and leaned her face towards the child's soft, parted lips, and felt her breath upon her cheek; she lifted the little limp, warm hand to her lips, and kissed it gently; but Molly stirred and fretted, and her mother was plainly relieved when the nurse came to take her to bed.

"How heavy she is getting, Rosa!" Mrs. Shore said, with that frowning pride common to mothers when any pain comes to them from the child's strength; and her eyes followed the little figure in Rosa's arms with a sort of passionate tenderness, before she allowed herself to sink back into her chair, and yawn, and think that her arm was really stiff from the child's weight.

heavens! I don't know how I am going to stand it. Perhaps I was a fool not to have sent her to Alicia, and taken Philip abroad for the summer?”

No nicety of thought prevented Mrs. Shore from regarding her husband's entire financial dependence upon her with anything but a crude truthfulness; but she was apt to confound such dependence with a certain silent acquiescence in her plans, and to feel that she really might have "taken" him abroad, or that she had "brought" him to Old Chester.

In the half-light there upon the old porch, where the climbing roses and the wistaria grew so thick about the pillars that they made an almost impenetrable lattice against the faint yellow light still lingering in the west, the singular and distinguished beauty of Cecil Shore's face was less noticeable than was that peculiar brutality one sees sometimes in refined and cultivated faces which have known nothing but ease: faces which have never shown eagerness, because all their desires are at hand; nor pity, because they have never suffered; nor humility, because their tributary world has made their sins those of omission rather than of commission.

"But this Mr. Carey is entertaining," Cecil was thinking, —“if a friend of Philip's can be entertaining!" She sighed, and looked wearily about her. "Yes, it must be good for Molly," she repeated, as though for self-encouragement. Sometimes the sense of a lack of interest comes over one with a horrible physical sinking. "And nothing ever has been interesting except that first I was married!" she said to herself.

year

She was just thirty nearly half her life, perhaps, was lived; why in the world should another thirty years seem so horrible? She had so many of the conditions which are supposed to mean happiness. She had Molly. "But, after all, Molly is not myself," she thought. In a mother this keen sense of personal identity is significant; it was even con

ceivable, with this sense, that Cecil Shore's little daughter might some time bore her. As she lay back in her chair, her face grew curiously dull and heavy, as though for very weariness of her own well being; and then a faint amusement came into her eyes at the remembrance of her husband's excellence, and with it a contemptuous impatience of her own good humor. For she was very good humored with Philip. Even Old Chester, snubbed and shocked and honestly grieved at a thousand faults, even Old Chester had to admit that she was very agreeable to Philip. "She makes him very comfortable," Old Chester said. "She is a good housekeeper, and that is most praisewor thy. She gives a great deal of thought to her food. She is lazy, but she trains her cook herself!" Her failings were all on the side of impertinence to her elders and betters, in extravagance, in indolence, in not bringing Molly up according to Old Chester traditions. But, for all that, she made Philip "very comfortable."

"How he hates it!" she thought to herself, a keen humor lighting her eyes. "He does n't want to be made comfortable. I think he would really like it better if I were not so agreeable to him. Oh, he ought to have been a monk, he ought to have been a monk!"

III.

Mrs. Drayton had been quite right in saying that Philip was always properly attentive. His first call in Old Chester was upon her; and though he was careful to say that his wife had sent him, with her love and apologies that the fatigue of the journey kept her from coming herself, no credit was given to Cecil.

"Sent him!" Mrs. Drayton said afterwards to Alicia, aggrieved, but shrewd. "As if I did n't know what that amounted to! She does n't even know he has been to see me. Oh, when I think how

6

"Oh," cried Mrs. Drayton, "you don't understand. Only a mother can understand the pang that a child's ingratitude causes. Of course I try to be forgiving, seventy times seven' is my motto, but Cecil was always like my own child to me. Did I ever tell you that somebody once asked Susy Carr which of you was your father's child by his first wife? Well, that shows how I loved her. And I'm sure, only the other day I made you carry her some poppies. I'm always showing her my affection, and she despises, despi-" And Mrs. Drayton broke down and wept.

Alicia, very pitiful of what her clear eyes told her was not wounded love, but wounded vanity, stayed in the darkened room for an hour, though she had not given Esther her orders for the day, nor picked the roses, nor fed her pigeons, nor had a moment to run up the hill to see Cecil.

On this particular occasion, however, in spite of Mrs. Drayton's insight into Cecil's feelings, her step-daughter did know that Philip was being "properly attentive." That morning, as he and Molly and Mr. Carey had started down to the village together, Cecil, standing on the porch to see them off, said gayly, "Spare Mr. Carey Mrs. Drayton, Philip. He has done nothing to deserve Mrs. Drayton, I'm sure. And make me as fatigued as possible, do! I shall not be equal to a call for a week."

Molly, hanging on her father's hand, said gravely, "Why does n't mamma like grandmamma?” At which Roger Ca

rey, under his breath, said something about little pitchers, and Philip laughed in spite of himself, but looked annoyed, and called Molly's attention to the fact that she had better pick some daisies for her aunt Lyssie.

They left Mr. Carey at his kinswoman's door before Philip went to make his call upon Mrs. Drayton. "Turn up at the tavern about eleven, Carey," he said, "and we'll walk back together."

"Eleven!" thought Mr. Carey, with dismay. "Must I stay with the old lady until eleven?"

Mrs. Pendleton was plainly of the opinion that he must, for she had many things to talk about. She was a pretty little woman, in spite of the heavy crape in which she was swathed; her face was round and somewhat rosy, and her light brown hair waved down over her ears, and about a forehead as smooth as though she were fourteen instead of forty-five. There was hardly a wrinkle on her placid face. Dr. Lavendar had been heard to say, in this connection, that "thought made wrinkles." And the inference was obvious! Yet the fact that Mrs. Pendleton was known in the world of letters might seem to contradict such an inferTo be sure, it was only as "Amanda P.," but almost every one who had seen the thin volume of verses had heard Mrs. Pendleton's modest acknowledgment of its authorship.

ence.

"I suppose," she used to confess whenever she gave away a copy of the book, "I suppose it was unfeminine to publish, but Amanda P.' is not like appearing under my own name. That I never could have done; it would have been so unfeminine." Indeed, in Old Chester Mrs. Pendleton was as distinguished by her femininity as by literature. Her delicate manners were of the kind that used to be called "genteel," and she always displayed the timidity and modesty that are expected of a 'very feminine" female. She had fainted once when a little mouse ran across

the chancel in church, and she had been known to say that she thought certain words in the service "most indelicate."

As she talked, Mr. Carey felt again his old impatience with her, which he had forgotten, as he had forgotten her, and he wished he could intercept Philip somewhere before the hour for meeting him at the tavern was up. Mrs. Pendleton did, however, give him a good deal of Old Chester gossip, for which he was not ungrateful. She told him that Frances Drayton, Cecil Shore's stepmother, was a most lovable character, and Alicia a devoted and dutiful daughter; that Susan Carr was quite philanthropic; and that Jane Temple had married very much beneath her. Mrs. Pendleton had lived in Old Chester only a short time, but it was another of her characteristics, this of speaking of persons whom she knew slightly by their first names.

The hour was nearly up when Roger went away, saying that he wanted to have a look at Old Chester before going home. He walked down by the church, and wondered what philosophy Dr. Lavendar exploited; for plain religion would scarcely have warranted Mrs. Pendleton's appreciative remark that old Dr. Lavendar was very learned, though though a little shabby. She did not mean to speak unkindly, but he was certainly shabby.

It was a pretty little church, the walls all rustling and tremulous with ivy, and with a flutter of sparrows' wings about the eaves. Philip had told him that Miss Drayton sung in the choir on Sundays. "I've a great mind to go to church while I'm here," the young man reflected. And with this thought in his mind, it was natural enough to turn and walk up on the other side of the street, past a low, whitewashed wall crowned by a dusty hawthorn hedge. It was remarkable how often Mr. Roger Carey glanced over that hedge at the white house behind it. "Perhaps she'll happen to come out," he said to himself. Possibly to

on.

keep such a chance open he stopped. and seemed to examine, with frowning interest, the fringe of grass which straggled out from the lawn and hung over the wall; but no door opened in the silent, sunny house, and no light step came down the path, and he was obliged to walk He wondered whether, when Mrs. Shore had presented him to Miss Drayton, and he had bowed, and said nothing but that Eric ought to have a drink, he had seemed like a cub? He really felt a little anxious. "The next time I see her I'll make myself agreeable; I'll make a pretty speech," he promised himself, his pleasant eyes crinkling into a laugh; and then his whole face suddenly beamed, and he pulled off his hat, for there was the lady of his thoughts before him. The barn, connected with the house by a line of outbuildings, faced the street; its double doors were open, and on the threshold, with the cavernous dusk behind her, stood Alicia Drayton in a blue print gown, her soft hair blowing about her forehead, and a crowd of fantail pigeons strutting and cooing and tumbling over one another at her feet. Lyssie had a basket in her hand, and now and then she threw a handful of oats among them; they walked over one another's pink feet, and pressed their snowy breasts so closely together that the grain fell on their glistening backs and wings before it reached the floor. Lyssie, as she let the oats drop through her fingers, made a low coo in her throat, or stopped to admonish her jostling friends. "Don't push so, Snowball. Puff, you're rude. There! there's some all for yourself." Then she looked out across the sunshine in front of the barn and saw Mr. Carey. She remembered quickly that her hair was rough, and she brushed the stray locks back with her wrist, but she smiled and said, "Goodmorning. Yes, do!" when he called out to know if he might come in and admire her flock.

"Why, aren't they tame!" he said,

as he took her hand, and then watched the pigeons flutter back after their moment's consternation at his footsteps. He had really meant to look at Alicia, she made so pretty a picture standing on the barn floor, with the shadowy haymow behind her, and a dusty line of sunshine from the window in the roof lying like a bar between them, he had intended to look at her, and perhaps even make his pretty speech; but the pigeons interested him too much; he had a dozen questions to ask about them.

"Have you any swifts? Do you call the young ones squabs or squalers? The sheen on that one's neck is like a bit of Roman glass!

"Is it? That's Puff. Indeed they are tame; look here!" She knelt down and stretched out her hand. "Come, come, come," she said, with the cooing sound in her throat; and one of the pigeons hopped upon her finger, clasping it with his red, hard little feet, and balancing back and forth with agitated entreaty to be careful, the fleeting iridescence of his rimpling breast striking out into sudden color. And as she knelt there, Roger, looking down at her, and seeing the pretty way her hair grew about the nape of her white neck, found the pigeons less absorbing. Then she said she would show him something else that was pretty, and stepped back into the dusky gloom of the barn and called "Fanny, Fanny! Come, Fan!" There was a scurry of uncertain little hoofs back in the recesses of the stable, and a bay colt, long-legged and shaggy, with small, suspicious ears pointed at the intruder, came with hesitating skips to her side.

"Is n't she a beauty?" Lyssie said. She had forgotten all her embarrassment of rumpled hair, and looked at him with the frankest, kindest eyes. Roger, examining the colt's mouth and stroking its absurd legs, said "yes," and called her attention to several good points, as certain of her appreciation as if she had not been a girl. Fanny's mother thrust

"Yes," said Mr. Carey ; 66 so-ah she said. I went down to see the church, Miss Drayton. Philip says we can come and hear you sing on Sunday?"

"Oh, it is Miss Susan Carr who sings," Lyssie explained; "she has a beautiful voice."

She looked at him with such placid candor that it would have been absurd to make a "pretty speech." As he thought it over afterwards, Roger Carey was surprised to find that he had not made a single pretty speech in their whole talk as they stood there in the barn with Fanny and the pigeons; perhaps it would have come had the talk been longer, but Alicia chanced to speak of Philip, and Mr. Carey, conscience-stricken, remembered that the hour was more than

up.

66

Philip!" he said. "What will Philip say to me? I was to have met him half an hour ago." Then he said goodby, and rushed away. But his haste was unnecessary; Philip had not yet reached the tavern; so he had to walk home by himself, thinking all the while, with regret, that he might have stayed a little longer in the barn.

The fact was, his host had forgotten him. After he had done his duty in calling upon his mother-in-law, there were many old friends whom he wanted to see. Then, too, he had to stop to point out familiar landmarks to his little daughter, which took time.