"

"She is well," says Barbara, stopping to look back at him with her hand
on Mabel's shoulder--there is reservation in her answer.

"Had she any idea that I would call to-day?" This question is absolutely
forced from him.

"How should she? Even I--did I know it? Certainly I thought you would
come some day, and soon, and she may have thought so, too, but--you
should have told me. You called too soon. Impatience is a vice," says
Mrs. Monkton, shaking her head in a very kindly fashion, however.

"I suppose when she knows--when," with a rather sad smile, "you tell
her--I am to be here on her return this afternoon she will not come with
you."

"Oh, yes, she will. I think so--I am sure of it. But you must
understand, Felix, that she is very peculiar, difficult is what they
call it now-a-days. And," pausing and glancing at him, "she is angry,
too, about something that happened before you left last autumn. I hardly
know what; I have imagined only, and," rapidly, "don't let us go into
it, but you will know that there was something."

"Something, yes," says he.

"Well, a trifle, probably. I have said she is difficult. But you failed
somewhere, and she is slow to pardon--where----"

"Where! What does that mean?" demands the young man, a great spring of
hope taking life within his eyes.

"Ah, that hardly matters. But she is not forgiving. She is the very
dearest girl I know, but that is one of her faults."

"She has no faults," says he, doggedly. And then: "Well, she knows I am
to be here this afternoon?"

"Yes. I told her."

"I am glad of that. If she returns with you from the Brabazons," with a
quick but heavy sigh, "there will be no hope in that."

"Don't be too hard," says Mrs. Monkton, who in truth is feeling a little
frightened. To come back without Joyce, and encounter an irate young
man, with Freddy goodness knows where--"She may have other engagements,"
she says. She waves him an airy adieu as she makes this cruel
suggestion, and with a kiss more hurried than usual to the children, and
a good deal of nervousness in her whole manner, runs down the steps to
her hansom and disappears.

Felix, thus abandoned, yields himself to the enemy. He gives his right
hand to Freddy and his left to Mabel, and lets them lead him captive
into the dining-room.

"I expect dinner is cold," says Tommy cheerfully, seating himself
without more ado, and watching the nurse, who is always in attendance at
this meal, as she raise