socks.

"Sir," said Will, with sudden energy, "look here; you have never been in
love, I dare say. If you had, you would not be so hard on me. Mr. Bowles
was in love with my wife there. Mr. Bowles is a very fine man, and I am
a cripple."

"Oh, Will! Will!" cried Jessie.

"But I trust my wife with my whole heart and soul; and, now that
the first pang is over, Mr. Bowles shall be, as mother says, kindly
welcome,--heartily welcome."

"Shake hands. Now you speak like a man, Will. I hope to bring Bowles
here to supper before many days are over."

And that night Kenelm wrote to Mr. Bowles:

MY DEAR TOM,--Come and spend a few days with me at Cromwell Lodge,
Moleswich. Mr. and Mrs. Somers wish much to see and to thank you. I
could not remain forever degraded in order to gratify your whim. They
would have it that I bought their shop, etc., and I was forced in
self-defence to say who it was. More on this and on travels when you
come.

Your true friend,

K. C.

CHAPTER XVI.

MRS. CAMERON was seated alone in her pretty drawing-room, with a book
lying open, but unheeded, on her lap. She was looking away from its
pages, seemingly into the garden without, but rather into empty space.

To a very acute and practised observer, there was in her countenance an
expression which baffled the common eye.

To the common eye it was simply vacant; the expression of a quiet,
humdrum woman, who might have been thinking of some quiet humdrum
household detail,--found that too much for her, and was now not thinking
at all.

But to the true observer, there were in that face indications of
a troubled past, still haunted with ghosts never to be laid at
rest,--indications, too, of a character in herself that had undergone
some revolutionary change; it had not always been the character of a
woman quiet and humdrum. The delicate outlines of the lip and nostril
evinced sensibility, and the deep and downward curve of it bespoke
habitual sadness. The softness of the look into space did not tell of
a vacant mind, but rather of a mind subdued and over-burdened by the
weight of a secret sorrow. There was also about her whole presence, in
the very quiet which made her prevalent external characteristic, the
evidence of manners formed in a high-bred society,--the society in which
quiet is connected with dignity and grace. The poor understood this
better than her rich acquaintances at Moleswich, when they said, "Mrs.
Cameron was every