sdale, having listened with increasing interest.
"But, Helen, you'll be a gossip, if you go on and prosper."

"Why, my dear child! He'll be over here every day now; and do you
suppose I'm going to flirt with any one, when I don't know his
antecedents? There he is now!"

And as Mrs. Laudersdale turned, she saw Mr. Raleigh standing composedly
in the doorway and surveying them. She bade him good-morning, coolly
enough, while Helen began searching the grounds of the tea-cups, rather
uncertain how much of her recital might have met his ears.

"Turning tea-cups, Gypsy Helen, and telling fates, all to no audience,
and with no cross on your palm?" asked the guest.

"So you ignore Mrs. Laudersdale?"

"Not at all; you weren't looking at her cup,--if she has one. Will you
have the morning paper?" he asked of that lady, who, receiving it,
leisurely unfolded and glanced over its extent.

"Where's my Cousin Kate?" then demanded Mr. Raleigh of Helen, having
regarded this performance.

"Gone shopping in town."

"Her vocation. For the day?"

"No,--it is time for their return now. When you hear wheels"--

"I hear them"; and he strolled to the window. "You should have said,
when I heard tongues; Medes and Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia
were less cheerful. A very pretty team. So she took her conjugal
appurtenance with her?"

"And left her cousinly impertinence behind her," retorted a gay voice
from his elbow.

"Ah, Kate! are you there? It's not a moment since I saw you 'coming from
the town.' A pretty hostess, you! I arrive on your invitation to pass
the day"--

"But I didn't expect you before the sun."

"To pass the day, and find you absent and the breakfast-table not
cleared away."

"My dear Roger, we have not quite taken our habits yet. As soon as the
country-air shall have wakened and made over Helen and Mrs. Laudersdale,
you will find us ready for company at daybreak."

"What a passion for 'company'! I shall not be surprised some day to
receive cards for your death-bed."

"Friends and relatives invited to attend? No, Roger, you mustn't be
naughty. You shall receive cards for my dinner-party before we go,
if you won't come without; for we have innumerable friends in town,
already."

"Happy woman!"

"What's that? A newspaper? A newspaper! How McLean will chuckle!" And
she seized the sheet which Mrs. Laudersdale had abandoned in sweeping
from the room.

"Is there a Mr. Laudersdale? Where is he?" aske