he grass. On the way up
to the house, she walked slowly, and appeared to be holding some
internal communion or argument with herself, and was seen to shake
herself rather fiercely before she went in.

"Well, where in the world have you been?" was the remark that greeted
her, as she appeared in the sitting-room door; and the speaker was Bea,
who turned from the window with wet eyes.

"Been? Up in the big tree out below the pond."

"Why I thought you had gone up town," exclaimed Kittie, who was crying
on the piano-stool, like one bereft. "Ralph's gone."

"Gone!" echoed Kat, slowly.

"Yes, gone," repeated Bea. "He found that he could make connections
right through by taking this afternoon's train, and he raced all around
town an hour before train-time, to find you. Kittie said you were going
after dinner."

"Yes, but I changed my mind," said Kat slowly, then turned and went out.
Gone, and with no good-bye to her! She wondered a little to see how much
the thought hurt her. Ralph's old straw hat, with its broad band of blue
ribbon, just as he used to wear it around the yard, hung on the rack.
She took it down with a queer little feeling in her throat, and slapped
it on to her head, then went out into the yard again.

CHAPTER XVIII.

AT THE OPERA.

The sun came warmly in at the great west window of the picture gallery,
and showed Olive sitting before a tall frame, and working busily at the
sketch that lay in her lap. Very near to her lay Jean, on a luxurious
little divan, with an open book in her hands, from which she read a
little now and then, and watching her sister in the meantime. It was
very still, for when Olive was at work she was always too absorbed to
think of aught else, and objected to being talked to, so the deep
silence lay unbroken, and Jean satisfied herself with being allowed to
watch to her heart's content.

At last Olive raised her head with a sigh, partly of fatigue, and partly
of blissful content, and after taking a professional squint at her
subject and her copy, passed it over to Jean with the remark:

"There, how do you like that, Jean? Does his nose look right?"

"Just beautiful!" cried Jean with enthusiasm. "How splendidly you do it,
Olive. He looks as if he was going to speak. It must be so nice to be an
artist; you'll be a great one, some day, won't you?"

"I want to be," answered Olive, who had lately learned that nothing so
threw Jean into raptures, as to be appealed to, a