ove wisdom. Does your intuition tell you that Mrs. Carew
is the true friend she professes to be to Mrs. Ocumpaugh?"

"Ah, that is a different thing!"

The clear brow I loved--there! how words escape a man!--lost its
smoothness and her eyes took on a troubled aspect, while her words came
slowly.

"I do not know how to answer that offhand. Sometimes I have felt that
her very soul was knit to that of Mrs. Ocumpaugh, and again I have had
my doubts. But never deep ones; never any such as would make it easy for
me to answer the question you have just put me."

"Was her love for Gwendolen sincere?" I asked.

"Oh, yes; oh, yes. That is, I always thought so, and with no
qualification, till something in her conduct when she first heard of
Gwendolen's disappearance--I can not describe it--gave me a sense of
disappointment. She was shocked, of course, and she was grieved, but not
hopelessly so. There was something lacking in her manner--we all felt
it; Mrs. Ocumpaugh felt it, and let her dear friend go the moment she
showed the slightest inclination to do so."

"There were excuses for Mrs. Carew, just at that time," said I. "You
forget the new interest which had come into her life. It was natural
that she should be preoccupied."

"With thoughts of her little nephew?" replied Miss Graham. "True, true;
but she had been so fond of Gwendolen! You would have thought--But why
all this talk about Mrs. Carew? You don't believe--you surely can not
believe--"

"That Mrs. Carew is a charming woman? Oh, yes, but I do. Mr. Rathbone
shows good taste."

"Ah, is she the one?"

"Did you not know it?"

"No; yet I have seen them together many times. Now I understand much
that has always been a mystery to me. He never pressed his suit; he
loved, but never harassed her. Oh, he is a good man!" This with
emphasis.

"Is she a good woman?"

Miss Graham's eyes suddenly fell, then rose again until they met mine
fully and frankly.

"I have no reason," said she, "to believe her otherwise. I have never
seen anything in her to hinder my esteem; only--"

"Finish that 'only.'"

"She does not appeal to me as many less gifted women do. Perhaps I am
secretly jealous of the extreme fondness Gwendolen has always shown for
her. If so, the fault is in me, not in her."

What I said in reply is not germane to this story.

After being assured by a few more discreet inquiries in some other
perfectly safe quarters that Miss Graham's opinion of Mr. Rat