erstood by Beauregard, the horse sprang forward into a
quick canter, leaving Nelson and his rider to follow as they could.

Hosmer overtook her when she stopped to let her horse drink at the
side of the hill where the sparkling spring water came trickling from
the moist rocks, and emptied into the long out-scooped trunk of a
cypress, that served as trough. The two horses plunged their heads
deep in the clear water; the proud Beauregard quivering with
satisfaction, as arching his neck and shaking off the clinging
moisture, he waited for his more deliberate companion.

"Doesn't it give one a sympathetic pleasure," said Therese, "to see
the relish with which they drink?"

"I never thought of it," replied Hosmer, cynically. His face was
unusually flushed, and diffidence was plainly seizing him again.

Therese was now completely mistress of herself, and during the
remainder of the ride she talked incessantly, giving him no chance for
more than the briefest answers.

VI

Melicent Talks.

"David Hosmer, you are the most supremely unsatisfactory man
existing."

Hosmer had come in from his ride, and seating himself in the large
wicker chair that stood in the center of the room, became at once
absorbed in reflections. Being addressed, he looked up at his sister,
who sat sidewards on the edge of a table slightly removed, swaying a
dainty slippered foot to and fro in evident impatience.

"What crime have I committed now, Melicent, against your code?" he
asked, not fully aroused from his reverie.

"You've committed nothing; your sin is one of omission. I absolutely
believe you go through the world with your eyes, to all practical
purposes, closed. Don't you notice anything; any change?"

"To be sure I do," said Hosmer, relying on a knowledge lent him by
previous similar experiences, and taking in the clinging artistic
drapery that enfolded her tall spare figure, "you've a new gown on. I
didn't think to mention it, but I noticed it all the same."

This admission of a discernment that he had failed to make evident,
aroused Melicent's uncontrolled mirth.

"A new gown!" and she laughed heartily. "A threadbare remnant! A thing
that holds by shreds and tatters."

She went behind her brother's chair, taking his face between her
hands, and turning it upward, kissed him on the forehead. With his
head in such position, he could not fail to observe the brilliant
folds of muslin that were arranged across the ceiling to