his last year, and Roderick had met him often before.
Miss Murray had worn some sort of soft white dress, he remembered, and
a big white hat, and she had been very bright and gay then, not sad and
pensive as she seemed now.

He did not realise that he was staring intently at her, while he
recalled all this, until she turned and looked at him. She gave a
start of surprised recognition mingled with something of dismay. For
an instant she looked irresolute; then she bowed, and Roderick came
quickly forward. She gave him her hand, a vague look in her deep
grey-blue eyes. She remembered him; Roderick's appearance was too
striking to be easily forgotten; but it was plain she could not recall
where.

"It was a Sunday evening, last fall--at Mrs. Carruthers'," he
stammered. She smiled reassuringly.

"Oh, yes, it was stupid of me to forget. You were in law, weren't you?"

"Yes, in my last year. I'm just on my way home now, to practise in
Algonquin. Are you going to visit friends here?"

"No, I'm going to teach." She did not seem to want to speak of
herself. "Algonquin is a very pretty place, I hear."

"It's is the most lovely place in Canada," said Roderick
enthusiastically. He was not as shy in her presence as he usually was
with young women. He could not help seeing, that for some
unaccountable reason, she was embarrassed at meeting him, and her
distress made him forget himself. He tried to put her at her ease in a
flurried way.

"How people scatter! The half-dozen that were at Mrs. Carruthers' that
night are all over the world. Billy Parker's gone to Victoria to
practise law, and Withers is in Germany, and Wells,--he graduated with
honours, didn't he? Where did Dick Wells go?"

Roderick had no sooner uttered the name than he saw he had made a
mistake. The girl's face flushed; a slow colour creeping up over neck
and brow and dyeing her cheeks crimson. But she looked up at him with
brave steady eyes as she answered quietly:

"I am not sure where he is. I heard he had gone to Montreal." And
when she had said it she became as white as the dainty lawn blouse she
wore.

Roderick made a blundering attempt to apologise for something, he
scarcely knew what, and only made matters worse.

"I--I beg your pardon," he said, "I shouldn't have asked--but I
thought--we understood--at least I mean Billy said," he floundered
about hopelessly, and she came to his aid.

"That Dr. Wells and I were engaged?" She