he Isle of Wight too. Oh, that dreadful bay!"

Mildred winced at Miss Terry's allusions to Arthur, of whom that lady
had grown extremely fond.

"I am very sorry, dear," she said, hastily; "but I am bored to death,
and it is such a bad insect year: so really you must begin to pack
up."

Miss Terry began to pack accordingly, but, when next she alluded to
the subject of their departure, Mildred affected surprise, and asked
her what she meant. The astonished Agatha referred her to her own
words, and was met by a laughing disclaimer.

"Why, you surely did not think that I was in earnest, did you? I was
only a little cross."

"Well, really, Mildred, you've got so strange lately that I never know
when you are in earnest and when you are not, though, for my part, I
am very glad to stay in peace and quiet."

"Strange, grown strange, have I!" said Mrs. Carr, looking dreamily out
of a window that commanded the carriage-drive, with her hands crossed
behind her. "Yes, I think that you are right. I think that I have lost
the old Mildred somewhere or other, and picked up a new one whom I
don't understand."

"Ah, indeed," remarked Miss Terry, in the most matter-of-fact way,
without having the faintest idea of what her friend was driving at.

"How it rains! I suppose that he won't come to-day."

"He! Who's he?"

"Why, how stupid you are! Mr. Heigham, of course!"

"So you always mean him, when you say 'he!'"

"Yes, of course I do, if it isn't ungrammatical. It is miserable this
afternoon. I feel wretched. Why, actually, here he comes!" and she
tore off like a school-girl into the hall, to meet him.

"Ah, indeed," again remarked Miss Terry, solemnly, to the empty walls.
"I am not such a fool as I look. I suppose that Mr. Heigham wouldn't
come to the Isle of Wight."

It is perhaps needless to say that Mrs. Carr had never been more in
earnest in her life than when she announced her intention of departing
to the Isle of Wight. The discovery that her suspicions about Arthur
had but too sure a foundation had been a crushing blow to her hopes,
and she had formed a wise resolution to see no more of him. Happy
would it have been for her, if she could have found the moral courage
to act up to it, and go away, a wiser, if a sadder, woman. But this
was not to be. The more she contemplated it, the more did her passion
--which was now both wild and deep--take hold upon her heart, eating
into it like acid into steel, and graving one n