uch that was
unpleasant had occurred. Here in the New Hampshire mountains all seemed
so different; she felt freed from the tainted atmosphere of the city
which had made her restless and uncertain in mind. Florence had not
forgotten her last words with Harold in Chicago; indeed she had thought
of them over and over again, during the long months that had passed
since that interview; the unpleasant episode at the Renaissance Club was
also seldom absent from her mind; but to-day it all seemed to have faded
quietly from her heart. Harold had come into church so silently, and it
seemed so natural to be walking by his side, that she was carried back
to the years before she went to Europe, when, still a child, she used to
romp and play with him over these same New Hampshire hills.

They reached the willows, and Florence sat down on the green turf and
leaned her back against a tree. She took off her hat and let the breeze
cool her temples, while Harold, stretched out on the bank beside her,
lay for a while resting upon his elbow, and carelessly watching the
pebbles, he threw from time to time, skip lightly from ripple to ripple
and finally sink from sight. The sunlight danced on the gently ruffled
surface of the water; in the distance the bold side of a mountain rose
abruptly above the lake, its rough outlines standing out sharply in
relief against the clear blue of the sky; and the little white
farmhouses, perched here and there high up on its slopes, glistened in
the sunshine.

They sat there enjoying the scene, until Florence seemed to awaken, as
from a pleasant dream, and feel all her troubled thoughts come rudely
back to her. She remembered that Harold had come from the distant city
in the West and had not yet told her the meaning of his unexpected
visit. "We must not dream on forever, Harold," she said, as he lazily
sent another pebble skipping from wave to wave; "you have not yet told
me the nature of the message you have brought."

Harold slightly shifted his position and, resting his head on his hand,
looked up into her face with a surprised expression, as though he, too,
had forgotten the present and was startled at being called back to it.
"I brought a command for you to return to Chicago," he said, smiling.

"A command from whom?" she asked in astonishment.

"Here it is," he answered, reaching into his pocket and producing a
letter which he handed to Florence.

It was addressed in Marion Sanderson's hand. Flore