d he must learn to love Madeline. So
Claire and Clarence vied with each other in chanting the praises of
Madeline Payne, and learned to know each other better because of her.

One day when he called, Claire chanced to be alone. Somehow she found
it hard to be quite at her ease when there was no Olive at hand,
behind whom to screen her personality from the eyes that might
overlook that sisterly barrier, but could not overleap it. If his eyes
had said less, or if she could have compelled her lips to say more!
But her usually active tongue seemed to lack for words and she found
herself talking in a reckless and somewhat incoherent manner upon all
sorts of topics, which she dragged forward in order to keep in check
the words which the look in his eyes heralded so plainly.

When she was almost at her wit's end, and tempted to flee ingloriously
in search of Olive, that lady entered and Claire felt as if saved
from lunacy. But she could not quite shake off the consciousness that
had awakened in her, and soon framed an excuse for leaving the room.
Once having escaped, she did not return, nor did Olive see her again
until she came down to dinner, and Doctor Vaughan had gone.

While lingering over that meal, Olive said, after they had talked of
Madeline through three courses, "I think, by-the-by, that Doctor
Vaughan expected to see you again before he went."

If I were writing of impossible heroines, I might say that Claire
looked conscious; but real women who are not all chalk and water, do
not display their feelings so readily to their mothers and sisters. So
Claire Keith looked up with the countenance of an astonished kitten.

"To see me? What for?"

"How should I know, if you don't?" smiling slightly.

"And _how_ should I know?" carelessly.

"Well, perhaps I was mistaken. But why have you kept your room all
this afternoon?"

"I have been packing. Please pass the marmalade."

"Packing!" mechanically reaching out the required dainty.

"Yes, packing. You don't think I came to spend the winter, do you?"

"But this is so sudden."

"Now, just listen, you unreasonable being!" assuming an air of grave
admonition. "Don't you know that I have overstayed my time by almost a
month?"

"Yes, but--"

"Well, don't you know that if I tell you beforehand that I am going,
you always contrive excuses and hatch plots, to keep me at least three
weeks longer?"

"I plead guilty," laughed Olive.

"Well, you see I have staid out