ng of all the beautiful
places there are in the world; of all the great things to be
done, of all that people are seeing, and doing, and enjoying.
I wish I could get away; I wish I could go anywhere--if I could
run away--I have a voice, I could sing, I could make money
enough to live upon. I think I should have done so, Monsieur
Horace, if I had not known you were coming home. Yes, if I
could run away somewhere, where I could breathe--be free----"

"You must never do that," cried Graham hastily--he was standing
opposite to her now, with his back to the fire; "you don't
know what you are saying, Madelon. Promise me that you will
not think of it even."

"I was talking nonsense, I don't suppose I meant it really,"
she answered; "I could not do it, you know; but I promise all
the same, as you wish it."

"And you always keep your promises, I know," said Graham,
smiling at her.

"Ah, do not," she cried, suddenly covering her face with her
hands, "don't speak of that, Monsieur Horace--I know now--ah,
yes, I understand what you must have thought--but I did not
then; indeed I was only a child then, I did not know what I
was doing."

"I don't think you are much more than a child now," said
Graham, taking one of her hands in his; "you are not much
altered, after all, Madelon."

"Am I not?" she said. "But I have tried to improve; I have
worked very hard, I thought it would please you, and that you
would be glad to find me different--and I am different," she
added, with a sudden pathetic change in her voice. "I
understand a great deal now that I never thought of before; I
think of the old life, but it is not all with pleasure, and I
know why Aunt Barbara--and yet I do love it so much, and you
are a part of it, Monsieur Horace--when you speak your vice
seems to bring it back; and you call me Madelon--no one else
calls me Madelon--" Her voice broke down.

"You are not happy, my dear little girl," said Graham, in his
old kind way, and trying to laugh off her emotion. "I shall
have to prescribe for you. What shall it be?--a course of balls
and theatres? What should Aunt Barbara say to that?"

"She would not employ you for a doctor again, I think," said
Madelon, smiling. "No, I am not unhappy, Monsieur Horace--only
dull sometimes; and Aunt Barbara would say, that is on account
of my foreign education. I know she thinks all foreigners
frivolous and ill educated; I have heard her say so."

When Madelon went to her room that