--more than courteous, Lady Alice
tells me, for he is kind. He wishes to disturb her as little as
possible--entreats her to stay at Courtleroy, and so on; but naturally
she wishes to have a house of her own."

"Of course. But I thought that she would prefer the South of France."

"If I may say so without offence," said Captain Duchesne, smiling, "Lady
Alice's tastes seem to be changing. She used to love the country and
inveigh against the ugliness of town; but now she spends her time in
visiting hospitals and exploring Whitechapel----"

Lesley almost sprang to her feet. "Oh, Captain Duchesne, are you in
earnest?"

"Quite in earnest."

"Oh, I _am_ so glad!"

"Why, may I ask?" said Duchesne, with real curiosity. But Lesley clasped
her hands tightly together and hung her head, feeling that she could not
explain to a comparative stranger how she felt that community of
interests might tend to a reconciliation between the long separated
father and mother. And in the rather awkward pause that followed, Miss
Ethel Kenyon was announced.

Lesley was very glad to see her, and glad to see that she looked
approvingly at Captain Duchesne, and launched at once into an animated
conversation with him. Lesley relapsed almost into silence for a time,
but a satisfied smile played upon her lips. It seemed to her that
Captain Duchesne's dark eyes lighted up when he talked to Ethel as they
had not done when he talked to _her_; that Ethel's cheeks dimpled with
her most irresistible smile, and that her voice was full of pretty
cadences, delighted laughter, mirth and sweetness. Lesley's nature was
so thoroughly unselfish, that she could bear to be set aside for a
friend's sake; and she was so ingenuous and single-minded that she put
no strained interpretation on the honest admiration which she read in
Harry Duchesne's eyes. It may have been partly in hopes of drawing her
once more into the conversation that he turned to her presently with a
laughing remark anent her love of smoky London.

"Oh, but it is not the smoke I like," Lesley answered. "It is the
people."

"Especially the poor people," put in Ethel, saucily. "Now, I can't bear
poor people; can you, Captain Duchesne?"

"I don't care for them much, I'm afraid."

"I like to do them good, and all that sort of thing," said Ethel. "Don't
look so sober, Lesley! I like to act to them, or sing to them, or give
them money; but I must say I don't like visiting them in the slums, or
ha