s house at the pace of a steam
engine.

Two minutes in his dressing-room, and he entered the drawing-room,
apologizing for keeping them waiting dinner, and explaining that he had
been compelled to go to his office to give some orders subsequent to his
return to Lynneborough. Lady Isabel's lips were pressed together, and
she preserved an obstinate silence. Mr. Carlyle, in his unsuspicion, did
not notice it.

"What did Barbara Hare want?" demanded Miss Carlyle, during dinner.

"She wanted to see me on business," was his reply, given in a tone that
certainly did not invite his sister to pursue the subject. "Will you
take some more fish, Isabel?"

"What was that you were reading over with her?" pursued the
indefatigable Miss Corny. "It looked like a note."

"Ah, that would be telling," returned Mr. Carlyle, willing to turn it
off with gayety. "If young ladies choose to make me party to their love
letters, I cannot betray confidence, you know."

"What rubbish Archibald!" quoth she. "As if you could not say outright
what Barbara wants, without making a mystery of it. And she seems to be
always wanting you now."

Mr. Carlyle glanced at his sister a quick, peculiar look; it seemed
to her to speak both of seriousness and warning. Involuntarily her
thoughts--and her fears--flew back to the past.

"Archibald, Archibald!" she uttered, repeating the name, as if she could
not get any further words out in her dread. "It--it--is never--that old
affair is never being raked up again?"

Now Miss Carlyle's "old affair" referred to one sole and sore
point--Richard Hare, and so Mr. Carlyle understood it. Lady Isabel
unhappily believing that any "old affair" could only have reference to
the bygone loves of her husband and Barbara.

"You will oblige me by going on with your dinner, Cornelia," gravely
responded Mr. Carlyle. Then--assuming a more laughing tone--"I tell
you it is unreasonable to expect me to betray a young woman's secrets,
although she may choose to confide them professionally to me. What say
you, Captain Levison?"

The gentleman addressed bowed, a smile of mockery, all too perceptible
to Lady Isabel, on his lips. And Miss Carlyle bent her head over her
plate, and went on with her dinner as meek as any lamb.

That same evening, Lady Isabel's indignant and rebellious heart
condescended to speak of it when alone with her husband.

"What is it that she wants with you so much, that Barbara Hare?"

"It is private bus