roval, "you're the only person who does!"

Either the confidential chat with Miss Toland had favourably affected
Julia's point of view, or the state of affairs between Jim and herself
actually brightened from that day. Julia noticed in his manner that
night a certain awkward hint of reconciliation, and with it a flood of
tenderness and generosity rose in her own heart, and she knew that,
deeply as he had hurt her, she was ready to forgive him and to be
friends again.

So a not unhappy week passed, and Julia, with more zest than she had
shown in some months, began to plan a real family reunion for
Thanksgiving, now only some ten days off. She wrote to the Doctor and
Mrs. Toland, to the Carletons and Aunt Sanna, and to Richie, who had
established himself in a little cottage on Mount Tamalpais, and who was
somewhat philanthropically practising his profession there. She very
carefully ordered special favours for the occasion, and selected two
eligible and homeless young men from her list of acquaintances to fill
out the table and to amuse Constance and Jane. Jim had to go to
Sacramento on the Saturday before Thanksgiving for an important
operation, but would be home again on Tuesday or Wednesday to take the
head of his own table on the holiday.

Julia offered, when the Friday night before his departure came, to help
him with packing. They had dined very quietly with friends that night,
and found themselves at home again not very long after ten o'clock. But
Jim, sinking into a chair beside the library fire, with an assortment of
new magazines at his elbow, politely declined.

"Oh, no, thank you! Plenty of time for that in the morning. I don't go
until nine."

"Let Chadwick do it, anyway, Jim. Shall I tell Ellie to send him up at
eight?"

"If you will. Thank you! Good-night!"

"Good-night!" And Julia trailed her satins and laces slowly upstairs,
unfastening her jewels as she went. A little sense of discouragement was
fighting for possession; she fought it consciously as she had fought
such waves of despondency a hundred times before. She propped herself
comfortably in pillows, turned on a light, and began to read.

Ellie fussed about the room for a few minutes, and then was gone. The
big house was very still. Eleven o'clock struck from the little mahogany
clock on her mantel, midnight struck, and still Jim's footstep did not
come up the stairs, and there was no welcome sound of occupancy in the
room adjoining her ow