her chair at her end of the
library-table, and by-and-by Bessie got a book and began to read. When
her aunt woke up it was half past nine. "Was that Alan coming in?" she
asked.

"I don't think he's been out," said the girl. "It isn't late enough for
him to come in--or early enough."

"I believe I'll go to bed," Miss Lynde returned. "I feel rather drowsy."

Bessie did not smile at a comedy which was apt to be repeated every
evening that she and her aunt spent at home together; they parted for
the night with the decencies of family affection, and Bessie delivered
the elder lady over to her maid. Then the girl sank down again, and
lay musing in her deep chair before the fire with her book shut on her
thumb. She looked rather old and worn in her reverie; her face lost
the air of gay banter which, after the beauty of her queer eyes and her
vivid mouth, was its charm. The eyes were rather dull now, and the mouth
was a little withered.

She was waiting for her brother to come down, as he was apt to do if he
was in the house, after their aunt went to bed, to smoke a cigar in the
library. He was in his house shoes when he shuffled into the room, but
her ear had detected his presence before a hiccough announced it. She
did not look up, but let him make several failures to light his cigar,
and damn the matches under his breath, before she pushed the drop-light
to him in silent suggestion. As he leaned over her chair-back to reach
its chimney with his cigar in his mouth, she said, "You're all right,
Alan."

He waited till he got round to his aunt's easy-chair and dropped into it
before he answered, "So are you, Bess."

"I'm not so sure of that," said the girl, "as I should be if you were
still scolding me. I knew that he was a jay, well enough, and I'd just
seen him behaving very like a cad to Mrs. Bevidge."

"Then I don't understand how you came to be with him."

"Oh yes, you do, Alan. You mustn't be logical! You might as well say
you can't understand how you came to be more serious than sober." The
brother laughed helplessly. "It was the excitement."

"But you can't give way to that sort of thing, Bess," said her brother,
with the gravity of a man feeling the consequences of his own errors.

"I know I can't, but I do," she returned. "I know it's bad for me, if it
isn't for other people. Come! I'll swear off if you will!"

"I'm always ready, to swear off," said the young man, gloomily. He
added, "But you've got brains