t though never so lightly. "Rain does me more good than harm," he
says.

"How did you come?" asks she, still charmingly anxious about his
well-being.

"I rode. A very good mare, too; though it seemed to me she never
traveled so slowly as to-day."

"You rode? Ah! then you got all that last heavy shower," says Dulce, who
has plainly made up her mind to go in for compassion of the very purest
and simplest.

"My _dear_ fellow!" puts in Roger at this juncture, "you don't half
consider yourself. Why on earth didn't you order out the covered
carriage and a few fur rugs?"

Gower colors; but Roger is smiling so naturally that he cannot, without
great loss of courtesy, take offence. Treating Dare's remark, however,
as beneath notice, he turns and addresses himself solely to Dulce.

"To tell you the truth," he says, calmly, "I adore rain. A sunny hour is
all very well in its way, and possesses its charms, no doubt, but for
choice give me a rattling good shower."

To Roger, of course, this assertion, spoken so innocently, is quite too
utterly delicious. Indeed, everybody smiles more or less, as he or she
remembers the cause of the quarrel a moment since. Had Gower been
thinking for ever, he could hardly have made a speech so calculated to
annoy Dulce as that just made. To add to her discomfiture, Roger laughs
aloud, a somewhat bitter, irritating laugh, that galls her to the quick.

"I must say I cannot sympathize with your taste," she says, very
petulantly, to Gower; and then, before that young man has time to
recover from the shock received through the abrupt change of her manner
from "sweetness and light" to transcendental gloom, she finishes his
defeat by turning her back upon him, and sinking into a chair beside
Portia.

"A gleam of sunshine at last," exclaims Sir Mark, at this moment, coming
for the third time to the surface, in the fond hope of once more
restoring peace to those around.

"Ah, yes, it is true," says Portia, holding up her hand to let the
solitary beam light upon it. It lies there willingly enough, and upon
her white gown, and upon her knitting needles, that sparkle like
diamonds beneath its touch.

"And the rain has ceased," says Julia. "How nice of it. By-the-by, where
is Fabian?"

"You know he never sees anyone," says Dulce, a little reproachfully, and
in a very low tone.

"But why?" asks Portia, turning her face to Dulce. Even as she speaks
she regrets her question, and she colors a hot, b