we've been looking
everywhere for you. It's too bad! I shall be afraid to trust you at
all after this. Why, it's horrid of you, grandfather! You might have
got killed crossing the drive."

The grandfather looked up and verified the situation, which seemed to
include a young man, tall and beautiful, but neither so handsome nor
so many heads high as the young men in the advertisements of
ready-to-wear clothing, who smiled down on the young girl as if he had
arrived with her, and were finding an amusement in her severity which
he might not, later. She was, in fact, very pretty, and her skirt
flared in the fashion of the last moment, as she stooped threateningly
yet fondly over her grandfather.

The younger sage silently and somewhat guiltily escaped from the
tumult of emotion which ignored him, and shuffled slowly down the
path. The other finally gave an "Oh!" of recognition, and then said,
for all explanation and excuse, "I didn't know what had become of
you," and then they all laughed.

XVIII

SELF-SACRIFICE: A FARCE-TRAGEDY

I

MISS ISOBEL RAMSEY AND MISS ESTHER GARNETT

_Miss Ramsey_: "And they were really understood to be engaged?" Miss
Ramsey is a dark-eyed, dark-haired girl of nearly the length of two
lady's umbrellas and the bulk of one closely folded in its sheath. She
stands with her elbow supported on the corner of the mantel, her
temple resting on the knuckle of a thin, nervous hand, in an effect of
thoughtful absent-mindedness. Miss Garnett, more or less Merovingian
in a costume that lends itself somewhat reluctantly to a low, thick
figure, is apparently poising for departure, as she stands before the
chair from which she has risen beside Miss Ramsey's tea-table and
looks earnestly up into Miss Ramsey's absent face. Both are very
young, but aim at being much older than they are, with occasional
lapses into extreme girlhood.

_Miss Garnett_: "Yes, distinctly. I knew you couldn't know, and I
thought you ought to." She speaks in a deep conviction-bearing and
conviction-carrying voice. "If he has been coming here so much."

_Miss Ramsey_, with what seems temperamental abruptness: "Sit down.
One can always think better sitting down." She catches a chair under
her with a deft movement of her heel, and Miss Garnett sinks
provisionally into her seat. "And I think it needs thought, don't
you?"

_Miss