out much later than
this, although I confess that I did expect her home much earlier
to-day."

"I'll stay till Nola comes," the positive little Lucy declared, "unless
Miss Blanchet turns me out; and there's an end of that. So, mamma dear,
you and Tessy do as you please, and never mind me."

"When Minola does come----" Mary Blanchet began to say.

"When she does come?" Lucy interrupted in portentous accents. "Say if
she does come, Miss Blanchet."

"When she does come, please don't say anything of Mr. Sheppard. Of
course she would not like to think that we spoke about such a subject."

"Oh, of course, of course!" all the ladies chorused, with looks
expressive of immense caution and discretion; and in true feminine
fashion all honestly assuming that there could be nothing wrong in
talking over anybody's supposed secrets so long as the person concerned
did not know of the talk.

"I see Miss Grey," said the quiet Theresa suddenly. She had been
looking out of the window to see if the carriage was near. As a
professed saint she had naturally less interest in ordinary human
creatures than her mother and sister had.

"Thank heaven!" Lucy exclaimed.

"Dear Lucy!" Theresa interposed in tones of mild remonstrance, as if
she would suggest that not everybody had a right to make reference to
heaven, and that heaven would probably resent any allusion to it by the
unqualified.

"Well, I am thankful that she is coming all the same; but I wish you
wouldn't call her Miss Grey, Tessy. It seems cold and unfriendly. Call
her Nola, please."

Mary Blanchet went to the door and exchanged a brief word or two with
Minola, in order that she might be prepared for her visitors. Minola
came in, looking very handsome, with her color heightened by a quick
walk home and the little excitement of her morning.

"How lovely you are looking, Nola, dear!" Lucy exclaimed, after the
first greetings were over. "You look as if you had been having an
adventure."

"I have had a sort of adventure," Minola answered with a faint blush.

The one thought went through the minds of all her listeners at the same
moment, and it shaped itself into a name--"Mr. Augustus Sheppard." All
were silent and breathless.

"It was not much," Minola hastened to say. "Only I met Mr. Victor Heron
in Regent's Park, and I have been walking with him."

Most of her listeners seemed relieved.

"I wish I had met him," Lucy blurted out. "He is very handsome, and I
should lik