to the white garden. The sky
beyond the thin boughs was dusking; the wind, which sang so merrily a
few hours ago, had fallen to sobbing.

It was too wretched to remain alone; she resolved to go into the
drawing-room; perhaps her brother was there. As she approached the door
somebody knocked on the outside, then there entered a dark man of spruce
appearance, who drew back a step as soon as he saw her.

'Pray excuse me,' he said, with an air of politeness. 'I supposed I
should find Mr. Mutimer here.'

'I think he's in the house,' Alice replied.

Richard appeared as they were speaking.

'What is it, Rodman?' he asked abruptly, passing into the library.

'I'll go to the drawing-room,' Alice said, and left the men together.

In half an hour Richard again joined her. He seemed in a better frame of
mind, for he came in humming. Alice, having glanced at him, averted her
face again and kept silence. She felt a hand smoothing her hair. Her
brother, leaning over the back of her seat, whispered to her,--

'You'll help me, Princess?'

She did not answer.

'You won't be hard, Alice? It's a wretched business, and I don't know
what I shall do if you throw me over. I can't do without you, old girl.'

'I can't tell mother, Dick. You know very well what it'll be. I daren't
do that.'

But even that task Alice at last took upon herself, after another
half-hour's discussion. Alas! she would never again feel towards her
brother as before this necessity fell upon her. Her life had undergone
that impoverishment which is so dangerous to elementary natures, the
loss of an ideal.

'You'll let me stay over to-morrow?' she said. 'There's nothing very
pleasant to go back to, and I don't see that a day 'll matter.'

'You can stay if you wish. I'm going to take you to have tea with Adela
now. If you stay we'll have her to dinner to-morrow.'

'I wonder whether we shall get along?' Alice mused.

'I don't see why not. You'll get lots of things from her, little notions
of all kinds.'

This is always a more or less dangerous form of recommendation, even
in talking to one's sister. To suggest that Adela would benefit by the
acquaintance would have been a far more politic procedure.

'What's wrong with me?' Alice inquired, still depressed by the scene she
had gone through.

'Oh, there's nothing wrong. It's only that you'll see differences at
first; from the people you've been used to, I mean. But I think you'll
have to go and get your