ors of the office. He loved Jane, and always sprang straight
at her, his big paws resting on her shoulders. These courtesies,
however, he did not extend to Meg. The high-bred setter had no other
salutation for the clay-colored remnant than a lifting of his nose, a
tightening of his legs, and a smothered growl when Meg ventured too
near his lordship.

"Come up, my dear, and let me look at you," were Mrs. Cavendish's first
words of salutation to Lucy. "I hear you have quite turned the heads of
all the gallants in Warehold. John says you are very beautiful, and you
know the doctor is a good judge, is he not, Miss Jane?" she added,
holding out her hands to them both. "And he's quite right; you are just
like your dear mother, who was known as the Rose of Barnegat long
before you were born. Shall we sit here, or will you come into my
little salon for a cup of tea?" It was always a salon to Mrs.
Cavendish, never a "sitting-room."

"Oh, please let me sit here," Lucy answered, checking a rising smile at
the word, "the view is so lovely," and without further comment or any
reference to the compliments showered upon her, she took her seat upon
the top step and began to play with Rex, who had already offered to
make friends with her, his invariable habit with well-dressed people.

Jane meanwhile improved the occasion to ask the doctor's mother about
the hospital they were building near Barnegat, and whether she and one
or two of the other ladies at Warehold would not be useful as visitors,
and, perhaps, in case of emergency, as nurses.

While the talk was in progress Lucy sat smoothing Rex's silky ears,
listening to every word her hostess spoke, watching her gestures and
the expressions that crossed her face, and settling in her mind for all
time, after the manner of young girls, what sort of woman the doctor's
mother might be; any opinions she might have had two years before being
now outlawed by this advanced young woman in her present mature
judgment.

In that comprehensive glance, with the profound wisdom of her seventeen
summers to help her, she had come to the conclusion that Mrs. Cavendish
was a high-strung, nervous, fussy little woman of fifty, with an
outward show of good-will and an inward intention to rip everybody up
the back who opposed her; proud of her home, of her blood, and of her
son, and determined, if she could manage it, to break off his
attachment for Jane, no matter at what cost. This last Lucy caught fr