is _very_ day I shall see him come in that
door. He will sit in that chair. His head will dent that cushion. I
shall sit on a footstool at his feet. The better to imagine the
position, I push a footstool into the desired neighborhood to Roger's
arm-chair, and already see myself, with the eye of faith, in solid
reality occupying it. I rehearse all the topics that will engage my
tongue. The better to realize their effect upon him, I give utterance
out loud to the many greetings, to the numberless fond and pretty things
with which I mean to load him.

He always looked so very joyful when I said any little civil thing to
him, and I so seldom, _seldom_ did. Ah! we will change all that! He
shall be nauseated with sweets. And then, still sitting by him, holding
his hand, and with my head (dressed in what I finally decide upon as the
becomingest fashion) daintily rested on his arm, I will tell him all my
troubles. I will tell him of Algy's estrangement, his cold looks and
harsh words. Without any outspoken or bitter abuse of her, I will yet
manage cunningly to set him on his guard against Mrs. Huntley. I will
lament over Bobby to him. Yes, I will tell him _all_ my troubles--_all_,
that is, with one reservation.

Barbara is no longer here. She has gone home.

"You will be better by yourselves," she says, gently, when she announces
her intention of going. "He will like it better. I should if I were he.
It will be like a new honey-moon."

"_That_ it will not," reply I, stoutly, recollecting how much I yawned,
and how largely Mr. Musgrave figured in the first. "I have no opinion of
honey-moons; no more would _you_ if you had _had_ one."

"_Should_ not I?" speaking a little absently, while her eyes stray
through the window to the serene coldness of the sky, and the pallid
droop of the snow-drops in the garden-border.

"You are sure," say I, earnestly, taking her light hand in mine, "that
you are not going because you think that you are not _wanted_ now--that
now, that I have my--my own property again" (smiling irrepressibly), "I
can do very well without you."

"_Quite_ sure, Nancy!" looking back into my eager eyes with confident
affection.

"And you will come back _very_ soon? _very?_"

"When you quarrel," she answers, her face dimpling into a laugh, "I will
come and make it up between you."

"You must come before _then_," say I, with a proud smile, "or your visit
is likely to be indefinitely postponed."

Roger and I q