at I wanted nothing."

"Then I suppose he got tired of you and ran away."

Henrietta's peculiar scarlet blush flowed rapidly over her cheeks as she
flung Agatha's arm away, exclaiming, "How dare you say so! You have no
heart. He adored me."

"Bosh!" said Agatha. "People always grow tired of one another. I grow
tired of myself whenever I am left alone for ten minutes, and I am
certain that I am fonder of myself than anyone can be of another
person."

"I know you are," said Henrietta, pained and spiteful. "You have always
been particularly fond of yourself."

"Very likely he resembles me in that respect. In that case he will grow
tired of himself and come back, and you will both coo like turtle doves
until he runs away again. Ugh! Serve you right for getting married. I
wonder how people can be so mad as to do it, with the example of their
married acquaintances all warning them against it."

"You don't know what it is to love," said Henrietta, plaintively, and
yet patronizingly. "Besides, we were not like other couples."

"So it seems. But never mind, take my word for it, he will return to you
as soon as he has had enough of his own company. Don't worry thinking
about him, but come and have a game at lawn tennis."

During this conversation they had left the drawing-room and made a
detour through the grounds. They were now approaching the tennis courts
by a path which wound between two laurel hedges through the shrubbery.
Meanwhile, Smilash, waiting on the guests in his white apron and gloves
(which he had positively refused to take off, alleging that he was a
common man, with common hands such as born ladies and gentlemen could
not be expected to take meat and drink from), had behaved himself
irreproachably until the arrival of Miss Wilson and her visitors, which
occurred as he was returning to the table with an empty tray, moving so
swiftly that he nearly came into collision with Mrs. Jansenius. Instead
of apologizing, he changed countenance, hastily held up the tray like a
shield before his face, and began to walk backward from her, stumbling
presently against Miss Lindsay, who was running to return a ball.
Without heeding her angry look and curt rebuke, he half turned, and
sidled away into the shrubbery, whence the tray presently rose into the
air, flew across the laurel hedge, and descended with a peal of stage
thunder on the stooped shoulders of Josephs. Miss Wilson, after asking
the housekeeper with some asp