d:

"P.S.--Just a line to say I've remembered that name. She's
Herrick--married a parson in India soon after her Penderfield
husband died. She's great on reformatories."

Sally reread her letter with a glow of interest on her face and a
passing approval or echo now and then. She noticed nothing unusual
in either her mother or her stepfather; but she did not look up,
so absorbed was she.

Had she done so she might have wondered why her mother had gone so
pale suddenly, and why there should be that puzzled absent look on
the handsome face her eyes remained fixed on across the table; but her
own mind was far away, deep in her amusement at her friend's letter,
full of her image of the disconcerted Dragon and the way Paganini
and Beethoven in alliance had ridden rough-shod over Mrs. Grundy and
social distinctions. She saw nothing, and finished a cup of coffee
undisturbed, and asked for more.

Fenwick, caught by some memory or association he could not define or
give its place to, for the moment looked at neither of his companions.
Rosalind, only too clear about all the postscript of the letter had
brought before her own mind, saw reason to dread its effect on his.
The linking of the name of Penderfield and that of the clergyman who
had married them at Umballa--a name that, two days since, had had
a familiar sound to him when she incautiously uttered it--was using
Suggestion to bait a trap for Memory. She felt she was steering
through shoal-waters perilously near the wind; but she made no attempt
to break his reverie. She might do as much harm as good. She only
watched his face, feeling its contrast to that of the absorbed and
happy merpussy, rejoicing in the fortunate outcome of her friend's
anxieties.

It was a great relief when, with a deep breath and a shake, akin to
a horse's when the flies won't take a hint, Fenwick flung off the
oppression, whatever it was, and came back into the living world on
a stepping-stone of the back-talk.

"Well done, Paganini! Nothing like it since Orpheus and Eurydice--only
this time it was Proserpine, not Pluto, that had to be put to sleep....
What's the matter, darling? Anything wrong?"

"Nothing at all. I was looking at you."

"Well, _I'm_ all right!" And Sally looked up from her letter for a
moment to say, "There's nothing the matter with Jeremiah," and went on
reading as before. Sally's attitude about him always implied a kind of
proprietorship, as in a large, fairly well-behav