n a perfectly fearless way, until
I looked up and saw there were tears in her beautiful brown eyes.

"How well you talk," she said, with a sort of sigh. "You have thought it
all out, I can see. I wonder what my husband would say. He is a member
of Parliament, you know, and we are very busy people, and society has
such claims on us that I cannot be much with my children. I have only
two; Joyce is three years old, and my boy is nearly eighteen months. Oh,
he is so lovely, and to think I can only see him for a few minutes at a
time, that I lose all his pretty ways; it is such a trouble to me. His
nurse is leaving to be married, and I am so anxious to find someone who
will watch over my darlings and make them happy."

She paused, as the sound of approaching footsteps were audible in the
corridor, and rose hastily as an impatient, "Violet, where are you, my
dear?" was distinctly audible.

"That is Mr. Morton; will you excuse me a moment?" And the next moment I
could hear her say, "I was in the blue drawing-room, Alick. I have sent
off the letters, and now I want to speak to you a moment," and her voice
died away as they moved farther down the corridor.

I felt a keen anxiety as to the result of that conversation. I was very
impulsive by nature, and I had fallen in love with Mrs. Morton. The worn
look on the beautiful young face had touched me somehow. One of my queer
visionary ideas came over me as I recalled her expression. I thought
that if I were an artist, and that my subject was the "Massacre of the
Innocents," that the mother's face in the foreground should be Mrs.
Morton's. "Rachel Weeping for her Children;" something of the pathetic
maternal agony, as for a lost babe, had seemed to cross her face as she
spoke of her little ones. I found out afterwards that, though she wore
no mourning, Mrs. Morton had lost a beautiful infant about four months
ago. It had not been more than six weeks old, but the mother's heart was
still bleeding. Many months afterwards she told me that she often
dreamed of her little Muriel--she had only been baptised the day before
her death--and woke trying to stifle her sobs that she might not disturb
her husband. I sat cogitating this imaginary picture of mine, and
shuddering over the sanguinary details, until Mrs. Morton returned, and,
to my embarrassment, her husband was with her.

I gave him a frightened glance as he crossed the room with rapid
footsteps. He was a quiet-looking man, with a