airway, she had been
able to keep her eyes upon Ralph and Cicely; and held herself ready,
should she hear Mrs. Drane coming down the stairs, to go up and engage
her in a consultation in regard to domestic arrangements. She had known
of the arrival of the telegraph boy, had seen what followed, and now
listened with rapt delight to Cicely's almost breathless announcement of
the joyful news.

After the girl went upstairs, La Fleur walked away; there was no need for
her to stand guard any longer.

"It isn't only the telegram," she said to herself, "that makes her face
shine and her voice quiver like that." Then she went out to congratulate
Mr. Haverley on the news from his sister. But the young man was not
there; his soul was too full for the restraints of a house or a roof, and
he had gone out, bareheaded, into the moonlight to be alone with his
happiness and to try to understand it.

When Mrs. Drane returned to her room, having gone down at her daughter's
request to pay the telegraph messenger, she found her daughter lying on a
couch, her face wet with tears. But in ten minutes Cicely was sitting up
and chattering gayly. The good lady was rejoiced to know that there was
no foundation for the evils they had feared, but she could not understand
why her daughter, usually a cool-headed little thing and used to
self-control, should be so affected by the news. And in the morning she
was positively frightened when Cicely informed her that she had not slept
a wink all night.

Mrs. Drane had not seen Ralph's face when he stretched out his arms
toward her daughter.

CHAPTER XXXIX

UNDISTURBED LETTUCE

When Ralph Haverley came in from his long moonlight ramble, he was so
happy that he went to bed and slept as sound as rock. But before he
closed his eyes he said to himself,--

"I will do that to-morrow; the very first thing to-morrow."

But people do not always do what they intend to do the very first thing
in the morning, and this was the case with Ralph. La Fleur, who knew that
a letter was expected, sent Mike early to the post-office, and soon after
breakfast Ralph had a letter from Miriam. It was a long one; it gave a
full account of the drowning accident and of some of her own experiences,
but it said not one word of the message sent by Miss Panney, to whom
Miriam alluded very slightly. It gave, however, the important information
that Mrs. Bannister had been so affected by the dreadful scene on the
beach that