ll be _less_
fond of you, and then perhaps she will stay."

"I don't want another maid, thank you, papa. And, indeed, I do think
Kingston was fond of me," said Lesley earnestly.

Mr. Brooke shrugged his shoulders. "Verily," he said, "the credulity of
some women----"

"But it isn't credulity," said Lesley, with something between a smile
and a sigh, "it is faith. And I can't altogether disbelieve in poor
Kingston--even now."

Mr. Brooke shook his head, but made no rejoinder. Privately he thought
Lesley foolishly mistaken, but believed that time would do its usual
office in correcting the mistakes of the young.

His own incredulity received a considerable shock somewhat later in the
day. About four o'clock a knock came to his study, and the knock was
followed by the appearance of the sour-visaged Sarah.

"If you please, sir, there's that woman herself wants to see you."

"What woman, Sarah?" said Caspar, carelessly. He was writing and
smoking, and did not look up from his work.

"The woman, Kingston, that ran away," said Sarah, indignantly. "I nearly
shut the door in her face, sir, I did."

"That wouldn't have been legal," said Mr. Brooke. "Why doesn't she see
Miss Brooke or Miss Lesley? I am busy."

"I expect she thinks she can get round you more easy," said Sarah, who
was a very old servant, and occasionally took liberties with her master
and mistress.

"She won't do that, Sarah," said Caspar, laughing a little in spite of
himself. "Show her in."

He laid down his pen and his pipe with a rather weary air. Really, he
was becoming involved in no end of domestic worries, and with few
compensations for his trouble! Such was his silent thought. Lesley
would, shortly leave him: Alice had refused to come back to his house.
Well, it would be but for a short time. He had almost made up his mind
that when Lesley was gone he would give up a house altogether, establish
his sister in a flat, throw journalism to the winds, and go abroad. The
life that he had led so long, the life of London offices and streets, of
the study and the committee-room, had become distasteful to him. As he
thrust away from him the manuscript at which he had been busy, his lips
were, half unconsciously, murmuring a very well-worn quotation--

"For I will see before I die,
The palms and temples of the South."

And from this passing day-dream he was roused by the entrance of a woman
whom he knew only as his daughter's maid.

He was s