d_ thing to
encourage the _right_ kind of feeling in Robinette, especially as
she is an _American_, you know....

* * * * *

Mrs. de Tracy paused, and replaced the letter in the package from
which she had withdrawn it.

"Maria Spalding's point of view," she observed, "has, I confess,
helped me to overcome the extreme reluctance I felt to receive the
child of that American here. Cynthia de Tracy's elopement nearly broke
my dear husband's heart. She was the apple of his eye before our
marriage; so much younger than himself that she was like his child
rather than his sister."

"What a shock it must have been!" murmured the companion. "What
ingratitude! Can you really receive her child? Of course you know
best, Mrs. de Tracy; but it seems a risk."

"Hardly a risk," rejoined Mrs. de Tracy with dignity. "But it is a
trial to me, and an effort that I scarcely feel called upon to make."

Miss Smeardon was so well versed in her duties that she knew she
always had to urge her employer to do exactly what she most wanted to
do, and the poor creature had developed a really wonderful ingenuity
in divining what these wishes were. Just now, however, she was, to use
a sporting phrase, "at fault" for a minute. She could not exactly
tell whether Mrs. de Tracy wanted to be urged to ask her niece to
Stoke Revel, or whether she wanted to be supplied with a really
plausible excuse for not doing so. Those of you who have seen a hound
at fault can imagine the companion at this moment: irresolute, tense,
desperately anxious to find and follow up the right scent. Compromise,
that useful refuge, came to her aid.

"It _is_ difficult to know," she faltered. Then Mrs. de Tracy gave her
the lead.

"Maria Spalding is right when she says that my husband's niece
contemplates a duty in visiting Stoke Revel," she announced. "The
young woman is the lawful daughter of Cynthia de Tracy that was: our
solicitors could never discover anything dubious in the marriage,
though we long suspected it. Therefore, though I never could have
invited her here, I admit that the Admiral's niece has a right to
come, in a way."

"Though her maiden name was Bean!" ejaculated the companion, almost
under her breath. "There are Pease in the North, as everyone knows;
perhaps there are Beans somewhere."

"There have never been Beans," said Mrs. de Tracy solemnly and totally
unconscious of a pun. "Look for yourself!"

Miss Sme