y! Why should people stay together when
they see it's a mistake? We say everybody shall have their chance. And
not one chance only, but more than one. People find out in marriage what
they couldn't find out before, and so----"

"You let them chuck it just when they're tired of it?" laughed Barnes.
"And what about the----"

"The children?" said Miss Floyd calmly. "Well, of course, that has to be
very carefully considered. But how can it do children any good to live
in an unhappy home?"

"Had Mrs. Verrier any children?"

"Yes, one little girl."

"I suppose she meant to keep her?"

"Why, of course."

"And the father didn't care?"

"Well, I believe he did," said Daphne unwillingly. "Yes, that was very
sad. He was quite devoted to her."

"And you think that's all right?" Barnes looked at his companion,
smiling.

"Well, of course, it was a pity," she said, with fresh impatience; "I
admit it was a pity. But then, why did she ever marry him? That was the
horrible mistake."

"I suppose she thought she liked him."

"Oh, it was he who was so desperately in love with her. He plagued her
into doing it."

"Poor devil!" said Barnes heartily. "All right, we're coming."

The last words were addressed to General Hobson, waving to them from the
kitchen-garden. They hurried on to join the curator, who took the party
for a stroll round some of the fields over which George Washington, in
his early married life, was accustomed to ride in summer and winter
dawns, inspecting his negroes, his plantation, and his barns. The grass
in these Southern fields was already high; there were shining
fruit-trees, blossom-laden, in an orchard copse; and the white dogwood
glittered in the woods.

For two people to whom the traditions of the place were dear, this quiet
walk through Washington's land had a charm far beyond that of the
reconstructed interior of the house. Here were things unaltered and
unalterable, boundaries, tracks, woods, haunted still by the figure of
the young master and bridegroom who brought Patsy Curtis there in 1759.
To the gray-haired curator every foot of them was sacred and familiar;
he knew these fields and the records of them better than any detail of
his own personal affairs; for years now he had lived in spirit with
Washington, through all the hours of the Mount Vernon day; his life was
ruled by one great ghost, so that everything actual was comparatively
dim. Boyson too, a fine soldier and a fine intelligen