. Davies had said she could not be
there. They were in mourning for Mr. Davies's mother, as Willett well
knew, and she expected Percy home within a week or ten days. Captain
Devers had assured her it couldn't be for longer, and indeed, oh, no!
she couldn't think of going to a ball in town.

But she did think of it very much indeed. She thought of it, and the
dance of the evening gone, far more than she did of Percy and his party
now sleeping in the snow or shivering in the wind at Dismal River. She
wrote him one of her long letters Thursday morning, spending over an
hour in the effort, and an equal time in her toilet for the luncheon at
the Darlings. She was in the midst of this charming function, assisted
by Mrs. Flight, when the gong on the front door announced the coming of
a visitor. "I can't see anybody now, can I?" she hazarded to Mrs.
Flight, and Mrs. Flight thought she really wouldn't have time, and so
whispered to Katty, as that Milesian maid-of-all-work bustled through
to answer the summons, "Mrs. Davies will have to be excused to callers,"
and the parley at the hall door was brief enough. Almira and her
assistant listened,--as what woman would not?--heard the courteous,
cordial tone of inquiry for Mrs. Davies, and Katty's flurried "Begs to
be excused, mum," and there was no need of the question which Mrs.
Flight asked,--"Who was it, Katty?" for both knew Mrs. Cranston's voice.

"I've done my best, Wilbur," said Meg, as she threw herself on the arm
of the big easy-chair in which her lord was reading the Chicago papers
before the snapping, sparkling fireplace. "She did not want to see me
last night, and she practically refused to see me this morning. She has
chosen her intimates, and it is a case of like unto like. We are not
congenial. Yet I so wanted to be a friend to him and to her."

Cranston dropped his paper and threw his strong arm about her waist, and
when a man turns from the contemplation of his favorite journal to that
of the face of his wife her queendom is assured.

"You've done all I could ask, dear," was his answer, "but we may have to
pocket our pride a little. She is very young and inexperienced. She goes
to Darlings' to-day, does she?--and that coxcomb Willett is to be there,
too." The _Times_ slipped to the floor, forgotten, and Margaret, saying
nothing more, drew closer to his side and nestled her round, soft cheek
against his weather-beaten jowl, and Agatha, coming quickly in from her
su