s to look and listen, she felt that she could not honorably go as
a worshiper till she had spoken to her father. So she wandered about on
the shore, and in the restful quiet learned more and grew stronger, and
conquered the dread of the morrow. She did not see her father again that
day for he could not get back from Helmstone till a late train, and she
had promised not to sit up for him.

The morning of her twenty-third birthday was bright and sunshiny; she
had slept well, but awoke with the oppressive consciousness that a
terrible hard duty lay before her. When she came down there was
a serious look in her eyes which did not escape Raeburn's keen
observation. He was down before her, and had been out already, for he
had managed somehow to procure a lovely handful of red and white roses
and mignonette.

"All good wishes for your birthday, and 'sweets to the sweet' as some
one remarked on a more funereal occasion," he said, stooping to kiss
her. "Dear little son Eric, it is very jolly to have you to myself for
once. No disrespect to Aunt Jean and old Tom, but two is company." "What
lovely flowers!" exclaimed Erica. "How good of you! Where did they come
from?"

"I made love to old Nicolls, the florist, to let me gather these myself;
he was very anxious to make a gorgeous arrangement done up in white
paper with a lace edge, and thought me a fearful Goth for preferring
this disorderly bunch."

They sat down to breakfast; afterward the morning papers came in, and
Raeburn disappeared behind the "Daily Review," while the servant cleared
the table. Erica stood by the open French window; she knew that in a few
minutes she must speak, and how to get what she had to say into words
she did not know. Her heart beat so fast that she felt almost choked. In
a sort of dream of pain she watched the passers-by happy looking girls
going down to bathe, children with spades and pails. Everything seemed
so tranquil, so ordinary while before her lay a duty which must change
her whole world.

"Not much news," said Raeburn, coming toward her as the servant left the
room. "For dullness commend me to a Monday paper! Well, Eric, how are
we to spend your twenty-third birthday? To think that I have actually
a child of twenty-three! Why, I ought to feel an old patriarch, and, in
spite of white hair and life-long badgering, I don't, you know. Come,
what shall we do. Where would you like to go?"

"Father," said Erica, "I want first to have a talk