of veiled indications to prospective
givers of gifts.

"You mean that 'Garden of the Hesperides' affair for up here, do you?"
said Louis.

Rachel gazed round the bedchamber. A memory of what it had been shot
painfully through her mind. For the room was profoundly changed
in character. Two narrow bedsteads given by Thomas Batchgrew, and
described by Mrs. Tarns, in a moment of daring, as "flighty," had
taken the place of Mrs. Maldon's bedstead, which was now in the spare
room, the spare-room bedstead having been allotted to Mrs. Tams,
and Rachel's old bedstead sold. Bright crocheted and embroidered
wedding-presents enlivened the pale tones of the room. The wardrobe,
washstand, dressing-table, chairs, carpet, and ottoman remained.
But there were razors on the washstand and boot-trees under it; the
wardrobe had been emptied, and filled on strange principles with
strange raiment; and the Maldon family Bible, instead of being on the
ottoman, was in the ottoman--so as to be out of the dust.

"Perhaps we may as well keep that here, after all," said Rachel,
indicating Athelsan's water-colour. Her voice was soft. She remembered
that the name of Mrs. Maldon, only a little while since a major
notability of Bursley and the very mirror of virtuous renown, had
been mentioned but once, and even then apologetically, during the
afternoon.

Louis asked, sharply--

"Why, if you don't care for it? _I_ don't."

"Well--" said Rachel. "As you like, then, dearest."

Louis walked out of the room with the water-colour, and in a moment
returned with a photogravure of Lord Leighton's "The Garden of the
Hesperides," in a coquettish gold frame--a gift newly arrived from
Louis' connections in the United States. The marmoreal and academic
work seemed wonderfully warm and original in that room at Bycars.
Rachel really admired it, and admired herself for admiring it. But
when Louis had hung it and flicked it into exact perpendicularity, and
they had both exclaimed upon its brilliant effect even in the dusk,
Rachel saw it also with the eyes of Mrs. Maldon, and wondered what
Mrs. Maldon would have thought of it opposite her bed, and knew what
Mrs. Maldon would have thought of it.

And then, the job being done and the progress of civilization assured,
Louis murmured in a new appealing voice--

"I say, Louise!"

"Louise" was perhaps his most happy invention, and the best proof
that Louis was Louis. Upon hearing that her full Christian names
w