woman that Mrs. Romaine was disappointed by the news which she
had just heard. Caspar Brooke, being a man, saw nothing.

"I am sorry," Mrs. Romaine said presently, with an assumption of great
candor. "I am afraid you will have an uncomfortable time."

"Oh, no," he answered, with indifference. "I shall not be uncomfortable,
because it will not affect me in the least. When I spoke of bracing
myself for the task, I was in jest." Mrs. Romaine did not believe this
statement. "I shall go my own way whether the girl is in the house or
not."

"Why, then, did you insist on this arrangement?"

"It is only right to give the girl a chance," said Mr. Brooke. "If she
has any grit in her the next twelve months will bring it out. Besides,
it is simple justice. She ought to see and judge for herself. If she
decides--as her mother did--that I am an ogre, she can go back to her
aristocratic friends in the North. I shall not try to keep her." There
was the suspicion of a grim sneer on his face as he spoke.

"Do you know what she is like?"

"Yes: I saw her one day in Paris. She did not know, of course, that I
was watching her. She is like her mother."

The tone was unpromising. But perhaps it would have been as well if
Rosalind Romaine had not murmured so pityingly--

"My poor friend! What you have suffered--and oh, what you _will_
suffer!"

Brooke looked at her in silence, and his eyes softened. Mrs. Romaine
seemed to him at that moment the incarnation of all that was sweet and
womanly. She was slender, pale, graceful: she had velvety dark eyes and
picturesque curling hair, cut short like a Florentine boy's. Her dress
was harmonious in color and design; her attitude was charming, her voice
most musical. It crossed Mr. Brooke's mind, as it had crossed his mind
before, that he might have been very happy if Providence had sent him a
wife like Rosalind Romaine.

"I shall not suffer," he said, after a little silence, "because I will
not suffer. My daughter will live for a year in my house, but she will
not trouble my peace, I can assure you. She will go her own way, and I
shall go mine."

"I am afraid that she will not be so passive as you think," said Mrs.
Romaine, with some hesitation. "She has been brought up in a very
different school from any that you would recommend. A girl fresh from a
French convent is not an easy person to deal with. Whatever may be the
advantages of these convents, there are certain virtues which are not