eautiful curves of drapery from the
waist. And her smile was so warm and so sincere! For the moment she
really felt that Edwin's presence in the house satisfied the keenest of
her desires, and of course her face generously expressed what she felt.

"Well, Miss Orgreave," Edwin grinned. "Here I am, you see!"

"And we're delighted," said Janet simply, taking his hand. She might
have amiably teased him about the protracted difficulties of getting
him. She might have hinted an agreeable petulance against the fact that
the brother had succeeded where the sister had failed. Her sisterly
manner to Charlie a little earlier had perhaps shown flashes of such
thoughts in her mind. But no. In the presence of Edwin, Janet's
extreme good-nature forgot everything save that he was there, a stranger
to be received and cherished.

"Here! Give us that tile," said Charlie.

"Beautiful evening," Edwin observed.

"Oh! Isn't it!" breathed Janet, in ecstasy, and gazed from the front
door into the western sky. "We were out on the lawn, but mother said it
was damp. It wasn't," she laughed. "But if you think it's damp, it is
damp, isn't it? Will you come and see mother? Charlie, you can leave
the front door open."

Edwin said to himself that she had all the attractiveness of a girl and
of a woman. She preceded him towards the door to the right. Charlie
hovered behind, on springs. Edwin, nervously pulling out his
handkerchief and putting it back, had a confused vision of the hall full
of little pictures, plates, stools, rugs, and old sword-sheaths. There
seemed to him to be far more knick-knacks in that hall than in the whole
of his father's house; Mr Orgreave's ingeniously contrived bookshelves
were simply overlaid and smothered in knick-knacks. Janet pushed at the
door, and the sound of the piano suddenly increased in volume.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TWO.

There was no cessation of the music as the three entered. As it were
beneath the music, Mrs Orgreave, a stout and faded calm lady, greeted
him kindly: "Mr Edwin!" She was shorter than Janet, but Edwin could
see Janet in her movements and in her full lips. "Well, Edwin!" said
Osmond Orgreave with lazy and distinguished good-nature, shaking hands.
Jimmie and Johnnie, now aged nineteen and eighteen respectively, were in
the room; Johnnie was reading; their blushing awkwardness in salutation
and comic efforts to be