eautiful crimson as the
quick vehemence of her tone strikes on her own ears.

Sir Mark, leaning over her chair, says:

"Two lessons in one day? Ambitious pupil! Well, if you must learn, know
this: Fabian never goes anywhere, except to church, and never receives
anybody even in his own home, for a reason that, I suppose, even you are
acquainted with." He looks keenly at her as he speaks.

"Yes--I know--that is, I have heard, of course," says Portia, in a very
still fashion, bending her eyes upon her knitting once more.

"How suddenly the rain has ceased," says some one; "it will be a very
charming evening after all."

"The flowers are already beginning to hold up their poor heads," says
Dulce, gazing down anxiously at the "garden quaint and fair" that
stretches itself beneath the window. The skies are clearing, the clouds
are melting away, far up above in the dark blue dome that overshadows
the earth.

"The great Minister of Nature, that upon the world imprints the virtue
of the heaven, and doles out Time for us with his beam," is coming
slowly into view from between two dusky clouds, and is flinging abroad
his yellow gleams of light.

"I hear wheels," says Dicky Browne, suddenly.

Everybody wakes up at once; and all the women try surreptitiously to get
a glimpse of their hair in the mirrors.

"Who can it be?" says Dulce, anxiously.

"If we went to the upper window we could see," says Dicky Browne,
kindly, whereupon they all rise in a body, and, regardless of tempers
and dignity, run to the window that overlooks the avenue, and gaze down
upon the gravel to see who fate may be bringing them.

It brings them a vehicle that fills them with consternation--a vehicle
that it would be charitable to suppose was built in the dark ages, and
had never seen the light until now. It is more like a sarcophagus than
anything else, and is drawn by the fossilized remains of two animals
that perhaps in happier times were named horses. For to-day, to enable
their mistress to reach Blount Hall, they have plainly been galvanized,
and have, in fact, traversed the road that lies between the Hall and
Blount Hollow on strictly scientific principles.

"The Gaunt equipage!" says Dicky Browne, in an awestruck tone. Nobody
answers him. Everybody is overfilled with a sense of oppression, because
of the fact; that the ancient carriage beneath contains a still more
ancient female, fatally familiar to them all. Smiles fade from their
faces