my sitting idle, perhaps?
Anything to please you! _I_ haven't got to go up and downstairs. Ring
the bell again."

"My dear Grace," Horace remonstrated, gravely, "you are quite mistaken.
I never even thought of your work."

"Never mind; it's inconsistent to send for my work, and then send it
away again. Ring the bell."

Horace looked at her without moving. "Grace," he said, "what has come to
you?"

"How should I know?" she retorted, carelessly. "Didn't you tell me to
rally my spirits? Will you ring the bell, or must I?"

Horace submitted. He frowned as he walked back to the bell. He was one
of the many people who instinctively resent anything that is new to
them. This strange outbreak was quite new to him. For the first time
in his life he felt sympathy for a servant, when the much-enduring man
appeared once more.

"Bring my work back; I have changed my mind." With that brief
explanation she reclined luxuriously on the soft sofa-cushions, swinging
one of her balls of wool to and fro above her head, and looking at it
lazily as she lay back. "I have a remark to make, Horace," she went on,
when the door had closed on her messenger. "It is only people in our
rank of life who get good servants. Did you notice? Nothing upsets that
man's temper. A servant in a poor family should have been impudent; a
maid-of-all-work would have wondered when I was going to know my own
mind." The man returned with the embroidery. This time she received
him graciously; she dismissed him with her thanks. "Have you seen your
mother lately, Horace?" she asked, suddenly sitting up and busying
herself with her work.

"I saw her yesterday," Horace answered.

"She understands, I hope, that I am not well enough to call on her? She
is not offended with me?"

Horace recovered his serenity. The deference to his mother implied in
Mercy's questions gently flattered his self-esteem. He resumed his place
on the sofa.

"Offended with you!" he answered, smiling. "My dear Grace, she sends you
her love. And, more than that, she has a wedding present for you."

Mercy became absorbed in her work; she stooped close over the
embroidery--so close that Horace could not see her face. "Do you know
what the present is?" she asked, in lowered tones, speaking absently.

"No. I only know it is waiting for you. Shall I go and get it to-day?"

She neither accepted nor refused the proposal--she went on with her work
more industriously than ever.

"There is plen