what you
mean"--the other interposed smitten by the liveliest distress and alarm.

The elder lady waved aside her outcry with admirable playfulness and
determination.

"Oh! I quite realize how crazy it must appear on his part, poor dear
fellow, seeing he has so little to offer from the worldly and commercial
standpoint. As he himself says--'the desire of the moth for the star, of
the night for the morrow.' Still money and position are not everything
in life, are they? Talent is an asset and so, I humbly believe, is the
pure devotion of a good man's heart. These count for something, or used
to do so when I was your age. But then the women of my generation were
educated in a less sophisticated school. You modern young persons are
wiser than we were no doubt, in that you are less romantic, less easily
touched.--I have not ventured to give Marshall much encouragement. It
would have been on my conscience to foster hopes which might be dashed.
And yet I own, darling child, your manner not once nor twice, during our
happy meetings at the Pavilion, when he read aloud to us or sang, gave me
the impression you were not entirely indifferent. He, I know, has thought
so too--for I have not been able to resist letting him pour out his hopes
and fears to me now and then. I could not refuse either him or myself
that indulgence, because"--

Mrs. Frayling rose, and, bending over our much tried and now positively
flabbergasted damsel, brushed her hair with a butterfly kiss.

"Because my own hopes were also not a little engaged," she said. "Your
manner to my poor Marshall, your willingness to let him so often be with
you made me--perhaps foolishly--believe not only that his sad life might
be crowned by a signal blessing, but you might be given to me some day as
a daughter of whom I could be intensely proud. I have grown to look upon
Marshall in the light of a son, and his wife would"--

Damaris had risen also. She stood at bay, white, strained, her lips
quivering.

"Do--do you mean that I have behaved badly to Mr. Wace, Henrietta? That I
have flirted with him?"

Mrs. Frayling drew her mouth into a naughty little knot. There were
awkward corners to be negotiated in these questions. She avoided them by
boldly striking for the open.

"Oh! it is natural, perfectly natural at your rather thoughtless time of
life. Only Marshall's admiration for you is very deep. He has the poetic
temperament which makes for suffering, for despair as wel