fully put the sheet she was examining on one side,
opened the parcel and looked at the wool.

"I met Silas Grangerson," said Phyl as the other was examining the
purchase with head turned on one side, holding it now in this light, now
in that.

"Silas Grangerson! Why, where on earth has he sprung from?" asked Miss
Pinckney in a voice of surprise.

"I don't know, but I met him in the street and we walked as far as the
Battery and--and--"

She hesitated for a moment, then it all came out. To no one but Maria
Pinckney could she have told that story.

"Well, of all the astounding creatures," said Miss Pinckney at last. "Did
he ask you to marry him?"

"No."

"Just to run away with him--kissed you."

"He kissed me at Grangersons."

"At Grangersons. When?"

"That night. I went into the garden and he came out from amongst some
bushes."

"Umph-- It's the family disease-- Well, if I get my fingers in his hair I
promise to cure him. He wants curing. He'll just apologise, and that
before he's an hour older. Where's he staying?"

"No, no," said Phyl, "you mustn't ever say I told you. I don't mind. I
would have said nothing only for Mr. Pinckney."

"You mean Richard?"

"Yes."

"What has he to do with it?"

Phyl did not hesitate nor turn her head away, though her cheeks were
burning.

"Silas Grangerson thinks I care for Mr. Pinckney, he said he would be even
with him. I know he intends doing him some injury. I feel it--and I want
you to warn him to be careful--without telling him, of course, what I have
said."

Miss Pinckney was silent for a moment. She had already matched Phyl and
Richard in her mind. She had come to a very full understanding of her
character, and she would have given all the linen at Vernons for the
certainty that those two cared for one another.

Frances Rhett rode her like an obsession. Life and nature had given Maria
Pinckney an acquired and instinctive knowledge of character, and in the
union of Richard and Frances Rhett she divined unhappiness, just as a
clever seaman divines the unseen ice-berg in the ship's track. She smelt
it.

"Phyl," said she, "do you care for Richard?"

The question quickly put and by those lips caused no confusion in the
girl's mind.

"No," said she. "At least-- Oh, I don't know how to explain it--I care for
everything here, for Vernons and everything in it, it is all like a story
that I love--Juliet and Vernons and the past and the present. He's part of
i