ovely apparition returned to shake her resolution. In the way of
people who write she began to view the encounter with unconscious
detachment. She was not to remain long in doubt as to the purpose of
Lois's visit.

"I am going abroad for an indefinite stay. I may return, of course, now
and then, but just to pass the time of day. Montgomery will never be my
home. Amzi and Phil--"

A smile, a slight movement of her head, a lifting of the hand completed
the sentence.

"They are strong ties," Nan replied, smiling in return.

"I want to tell you how deeply grateful I am to you and your sister, for
your kindnesses to dear Phil. In these years that I have been gone you
and Rose have been"--she hesitated--"like mothers and grown-up sisters
to her. The result speaks for itself. Without you those sisters of mine
would have made a fool of her."

"Oh, Phil couldn't have been spoiled!" exclaimed Nan.

"Anybody might be spoiled," Lois insisted. "I'm rather a sad example of
the spoiled child myself. I speak, you see, from a weight of
experience!"

The smile continued in lips and eyes. She was tremendously at ease and
her ease was disconcerting.

"Phil has kept us delighted and bewildered. She was born with
understanding; there's genius in the child!" said Nan, with warmth.

"Ah! I knew you realized that! Tom"--she spoke her discarded husband's
name unwaveringly, smiling still--"Tom has not quite taken her at full
value, though he has been--splendid. Amzi has been a dear angel to
her,--but even he has never fully taken in the real Phil. But here, in
this house"--she looked about, as though the more fully to place the
room in evidence--"you have taken her into your hearts! And she needed
the oversight of women--of women like you and Rose. You have been her
great stimulus, the wisest of counselors. It seems almost as though I
had left her on your doorstep! I am not so dull but that I see it all."

Nan colored deeply. Lois's suggestion, so bluntly put, that she had cast
her child upon the Bartletts' doorstep aroused uncomfortable memories.
After an instant's reflection Nan said:--

"Phil and her father have been unusually close; I don't believe Mr.
Kirkwood has failed at any point in duty or sympathy. He is immensely
proud of her development."

"Yes. But--he is not a woman! And there's a difference, if I haven't
forfeited my right to an opinion on that point!"

She skirted the fringes, the dim borders of the past with the