er. "For, apart from the hygienic advantages of the bath before
the supper, I confess"--with faintly discernible amusement--"to a
fancy for the ceremony as a form, so to speak, emblematic of a moral
washing and a fresh start." She ended with a raising of her brows as
she regarded her brother.

Austen Blair had no use for levity. Mild as this was, he dismissed it
curtly. "I would suggest," he said, "that you avoid personalities; it
can but be injudicious for any child to hear itself discussed."

Again Harriet laughed; she was provokingly good-humoured. "Coming
from her nine years of life beneath Molly's expansive nature, I don't
think you need fear for what she'll gather from me." She took the
child's hand and lifted her from the chair. "Here is Nelly, Alexina;
go with her and do what she says. Say good-night to your uncle.
Supper, Austen."

The dining-room being sombre, one might have said it accorded with the
master, whose frown had not all cleared away.

Harriet was speaking. "What of Molly? Was there a scene at parting
with her voluntarily given-up offspring? For her moods, like her
tempers, used to delight in being somewhat inconsistent and mixed."

"She has in no way changed," replied Austen. Was it this flat
conciseness in all he said that made levity irresistible to Harriet in
turn? "My interview with her was confined to business. That ended,
she told me, as an afterthought, apparently, that the coloured woman
was going to remain with her, and she supposed Alexina could manage on
the train. She also told me that her husband had severed connection
with the legation and was going back to Paris. Alexina was not with
them at the hotel, but with her uncle, Senator Randolph, from whose
house Molly was married."

"And Molly's parting with the child--"

"Was a piece with it all, tears and relief, just as you would have
expected."

"And the husband's, this Mr. Garnier's, attitude?"

"Was enigmatical; how far he understands the situation I had no means
of judging."

"I'm sorry for the child, though," said Harriet suddenly, "for if
there is anything of Molly in her, life according to the Blair
standard may pall, and," whimsically, "her mixture of natures be vexed
within her."

Austen took the Blairs seriously, and at any time he disliked the
personal or the playful. He spoke coldly. "Having given the child over
to you from the moment of arrival, of this initiatory tone you are
taking I shall say no more. Duti