ard the door.

"So many things have been true, dear, that I hoped were not!"

This answer, given from the threshold, left Miss Lucilla not more aghast
than disappointed. It brought into the romance features which no single
woman can afford to contemplate. She would have entered into the affairs
of a wronged heroine with enthusiastic interest; but what was to be done
with those of a possibly guilty one? She was so ready for the unexpected
that as she stood at a back window, looking into the garden, it was
almost a surprise not to find the night-blooming cereus really lifting
its exotic head among the stout spring shoots of the peonies. With the
vague feeling that the Park might prove more fruitful ground for the
phenomenon, she moved to a front window, where she was not long
unrewarded. If it was not the night-blooming cereus that drove up in the
handsome, open automobile, turning into the Park, it was something
equally portentous; for Mrs. Bayford had already played a part in
Diane's drama, and was now, presumably, about to enter on the scene
again. Miss Lucilla drew back, so as to be out of sight, while keeping
her visitors in view. For a minute she hoped that Marion Grimston
herself might be minded to make her a call, for she liked the handsome
girl, whose outspoken protests against the shams of her life agreed with
her own more gentle horror of pretension. Marion, wreathed in veils,
was, however, at the steering-wheel, and, as she guided the huge machine
to the curbstone, showed no symptoms of wishing to alight. Beside her
was Reggie Bradford, a large, fat youth, whose big, good-natured laugh
almost called back echoes from the surrounding houses. As the car
stopped he lumbered down from his perch, and helped Mrs. Bayford to
descend. When he had clambered back to his place again the great vehicle
rolled on. It was plain now to Miss Lucilla that a new act of the piece
was about to begin, and she hurried back to the library in order to be
in her place before the rising of the curtain. For Miss Lucilla's
callers there was always an immediate subject of conversation which had
to be exhausted before any other topic could be touched upon; and Mrs.
Bayford tackled it at once, asking the questions and answering them
herself, so as to get it out of the way.

"Well, how is Regina? Very much the same, of course. I don't suppose
you'll see any change in her now, until it's for the worse. Poor thing!
one could almost wish, in he