ost imminent to be done--to
ignore Calvert altogether, and never recur to any mention of his name.
Loyd saw that the turquoise ring was no longer worn by her, and she,
with a woman's quickness, noted his observation of the fact I am not
sure that in her eyes a recognition of his joy did not glisten, but she
certainly never uttered a word that could bring up his name.

"So I am your guest, Madam, for ten days more!" said Loyd to Miss
Grainger, as they sat at tea that night.

"Oh, we are only too happy. It is a very great pleasure to us, if--if we
could feel that your delay may not prove injurious to you."

"It will be very enjoyable, at all events," said he, with an easy smile,
and as though to evade the discussion of the other "count".

"I was thinking of what your friends would say about it."

"It is a very limited public, I assure you," said he, laughing, "and one
which so implicitly trusts me, that I have only to say I have done what
I believed to be right to be confirmed in their good esteem."

The old lady was not to be put off by generalities, and she questioned
him closely as to whether an overland passage did not cost a hundred
pounds and upwards, and all but asked whether it was quite convenient
to him to disburse that amount She hinted something about an adage of
people who "paid for their whistle," but suggested some grave doubts if
they ever felt themselves recompensed in after time by recollecting the
music that had cost so dearly; in a word, she made herself supremely
disagreeable while he drank his tea, and only too glad to make his
escape to go and sit beside Florry, and talk over again all they had
said in the morning.

"Only think, Milly," said she, poutingly, as her sister entered, "how
Aunt Grainger is worrying poor Joseph, and won't let him enjoy in peace
the few days we are to have together."

But he did enjoy them, and to the utmost Florence very soon threw off
all trace of her late indisposition, and sought, in many ways, to make
her lover forget all the pain she had cost him. The first week was one
of almost unalloyed happiness; the second opened with the thought that
the days were numbered. After Monday came Tuesday, then Wednesday, which
preceded Thursday, when he was to leave.

How was it, they asked themselves, that a whole week had gone over? It
was surely impossible! Impossible it must be, for now they remembered
the mass of things they had to talk over together, not one of which