looking down at her
flowers, the color and smile and dimples coming and going in her fair
young face in very unwonted confusion. But Mary Kingston noted every
change of tint and expression, and was surprised. For the little mystery
was quite plain to her. It was not Mr. Kenyon who sent the flowers at
all. Mr. Kenyon was too busy a man to buy bouquets. It was Oliver Trent
who had sent them, for Kingston had herself seen him carrying the
flowers and entrusting them to a commissionnaire with a message for Miss
Brooke. She believed, too, that Lesley knew from whom they came. But she
was not sufficiently alert and interested just then to make these
matters of great importance to her. She did not think it worth her while
to say how much she knew. With a short quick sigh she turned away, and
expected to see her young mistress quit the room at once, still with
that happy smile upon her face. But Lesley had heard the sigh.

"Oh, Kingston," she said, laying her hand on the woman's arm, "I wish
you would not sigh like that!"

"I beg your pardon, ma'am; I did not mean to annoy you."

"I don't mean _that_: I mean it for your own sake. You seem so sad about
something--you have been sad so long!"

"I've had a sad life, Miss Lesley."

"But there is surely some special sadness now?"

"Yes," said the woman slowly. "Yes, that is true. I've--lost--a friend."

She put a strong emphasis on the word "lost," and paused before and
after uttering it, as if it bore a peculiar meaning to her. But Lesley
took the word in its ordinary sense.

"I am very sorry," she said. "It must be very terrible, I think, when
one's friends die."

She stood silent for a minute--a shadow from Kingston's grief troubling
the sweetness of her fair face. It was the maid who broke the silence.

"Excuse me, ma'am; I oughtn't to have troubled you with my affairs
to-night, just when you're enjoying yourself too. But it's hard
sometimes to keep quiet."

Moved by a sudden instinct of sympathy, Lesley turned and kissed the
woman who served her, as if she had been a sister. It was in such ways
that she showed her kinship with the man who had written "The
Unexplored." Lady Alice, in spite of all her kindness of heart, would
never have thought of kissing her ladies' maid.

"Don't grieve--don't be sorrowful," said Lesley. "Perhaps things will
mend by and by."

"Ah, my dear," said Kingston, forgetting her position, as Lady Alice
would have said, while that young, s