n seemed only to accentuate the lack of spirit and regularity in
my features. I was still standing there, gazing wistfully at my
mirrored face with a strange sinking of spirit, when Father came
through the hall, his riding whip in his hand. Seeing me, he laughed.

"Don't waste your time gazing into mirrors, Isobel," he said
carelessly. "That might have been excusable in former ladies of
Shirley whose beauty might pardon and even adorn vanity, but with you
it is only absurd. The needle and the cookbook are all that you need
concern yourself with."

I was accustomed to such speeches from him, but they had never hurt me
so cruelly before. At that moment I would have given all the world
only to be beautiful.

The next Sunday I looked across the church, and in the Fraser pew I
saw the young man I had met in the wood. He was looking at me with his
arms folded over his breast and on his brow a little frown that seemed
somehow indicative of pain and surprise. I felt a miserable sense of
disappointment. If he were the Frasers' guest I could not expect to
meet him again. Father hated the Frasers, all the Shirleys hated them;
it was an old feud, bitter and lasting, that had been as much our
inheritance for generations as land and money. The only thing Father
had ever taken pains to teach me was detestation of the Frasers and
all their works. I accepted this as I accepted all the other
traditions of my race. I thought it did not matter much. The Frasers
were not likely to come my way, and hatred was a good satisfying
passion in the lack of all else. I think I rather took a pride in
hating them as became my blood.

I did not look at the Fraser pew again, but outside, under the elms,
we met him, standing in the dappling light and shadow. He looked very
handsome and a little sad. I could not help glancing back over my
shoulder as Father and I walked to the gate, and I saw him looking
after us with that little frown which again made me think something
had hurt him. I liked better the smile he had worn in the beech wood,
but I had an odd liking for the frown too, and I think I had a foolish
longing to go back to him, put up my fingers and smooth it away.

"So Alan Fraser has come home," said my father.

"Alan Fraser?" I repeated, with a strange, horrible feeling of
coldness and chill coming over me like a shadow on a bright day. Alan
Fraser, the son of old Malcolm Fraser of Glenellyn! The son of our
enemy! He had been living sinc