r birth, education, and religion,--although
the latter I believe she would readily change," said Mrs. Randolph,
severely. "But when you speak of MY already thinking of 'such things,'
do you suppose that your friend, Mr. Mallory, didn't consider all that
when he sent that girl here?"

"Never," said the major, vehemently, "and if it entered his head now, by
Jove, he'd take her away to-morrow--always supposing I didn't anticipate
him by sending her off myself."

Mrs. Randolph uttered her mirthless laugh. "And you suppose the girl
would go? Really, major, you don't seem to understand this boasted
liberty of your own countrywoman. What does she care for her father's
control? Why, she'd make him do just what SHE wanted. But," she added
with an expression of dignity, "perhaps we had better not discuss this
until we know something of Emile's feelings in the matter. That is the
only question that concerns us." With this she swept out of the room,
leaving the major at first speechless with honest indignation, and
then after the fashion of all guileless natures, a little uneasy and
suspicious of his own guilelessness. For a day or two after, he found
himself, not without a sensation of meanness, watching Rose when in
Emile's presence, but he could distinguish nothing more than the frank
satisfaction she showed equally to the others. Yet he found himself
regretting even that, so subtle was the contagion of his wife's
suspicions.

CHAPTER III

It had been a warm morning; an unusual mist, which the sun had not
dissipated, had crept on from the great grain-fields beyond, and hung
around the house charged with a dry, dusty closeness that seemed to be
quite independent of the sun's rays, and more like a heated exhalation
or emanation of the soil itself. In its acrid irritation Rose thought
she could detect the breath of the wheat as on the day she had
plunged into its pale, green shadows. By the afternoon this mist had
disappeared, apparently in the same mysterious manner, but not scattered
by the usual trade-wind, which--another unusual circumstance--that day
was not forthcoming. There was a breathlessness in the air like the
hush of listening expectancy, which filled the young girl with a vague
restlessness, and seemed to even affect a scattered company of crows
in the field beyond the house, which rose suddenly with startled but
aimless wings, and then dropped vacantly among the grain again.

Major Randolph was inspecting a