ity of feeling she put into her voice brought another gush of
tears into Louise's eyes. "Matt _is_ good. And I will tell him what you
say. He will like to hear it." They looked down the road, but they could
not see Simpson coming yet. "Don't wait, Sue," she pleaded. "Do go back!
You will be all worn out."

"No, I will stay till your carriage comes," said Suzette; and they
remained a moment silent together.

Then Louise said, "Matt has got a new fad: a young man that writes on
the newspapers--"

"The newspapers!" Suzette repeated with an intimation of abhorrence.

"Oh, but he isn't like the others," Louise hastened to explain. "Very
handsome, and interesting, and pale, and sick. He is going to be a poet,
but he's had to be a reporter. He's awfully clever; but Matt says he's
awfully poor, and he has had such a hard time. Now they think he won't
have to interview people any more--he came to interview papa, the first
time; and poor papa was very blunt with him; and then so sorry. He's got
some other kind of newspaper place; I don't know what. Matt liked what
he wrote about--about, your--troubles, Sue."

"Where was it?" asked Sue. "They were all wickedly false and cruel."

"His wasn't cruel. It was in the _Abstract_."

"Yes, I remember. But he said papa had taken the money," Sue answered
unrelentingly.

"Did he? I thought he only said _if_ he did. I don't believe he said
more. Matt wouldn't have liked it so much if he had. He's in such bad
health. But he's awfully clever."

The hack came in sight over the rise of ground, with Simpson driving
furiously, as he always did when he saw people. Louise threw her arms
round her friend again. "Let me go back and stay with you, Sue! Or, come
home with me, you and Miss Northwick. We shall all be so glad to have
you, and I hate so to leave you here alone. It seems so dreadful!"

"Yes. But it's easier to bear it here than anywhere else. Some day all
the falsehood will be cleared up, and then we shall be glad that we bore
it where he left us. We have decided what we shall do, Adeline and I. We
shall try to let the house furnished for the summer, and live in the
lodge here."

Louise looked round at the cottage by the avenue gate, and said it would
be beautiful.

"We've never used it for any one, yet," Suzette continued, "and we can
move back into the house in the winter."

This again seemed to Louise an admirable notion, and she parted from her
friend in more comfort than s