on the daughter's grace of movement and carriage. "She is
always so distinguished," she thought, and then checked herself by the
remembrance that she was applying to Elizabeth an adjective that
Elizabeth particularly disliked. Nevertheless, Mrs. Gaddesden knew very
well what she herself meant by it. She meant something--some quality in
Elizabeth, which was always provoking in her mother's mind despairing
comparisons between what she might make of her life and what she was
actually making, or threatening to make of it.

Alas, for that Canadian journey--that disastrous Canadian journey! Mrs.
Gaddesden's thoughts, as she watched the two strollers outside, were
carried back to the moment in early August when Arthur Delaine had
reappeared in her drawing-room, three weeks before Elizabeth's return,
and she had gathered from his cautious and stammering revelations what
kind of man it was who seemed to have established this strange hold on
her daughter. Delaine, she thought, had spoken most generously of
Elizabeth and his own disappointment, and most kindly of this
Mr. Anderson.

"I know nothing against him personally--nothing! No doubt a very
estimable young fellow, with just the kind of ability that will help him
in Canada. Lady Merton, I imagine, will have told you of the sad events
in which we found him involved?"

Mrs. Gaddesden had replied that certainly Elizabeth had told her the
whole story, so far as it concerned Mr. Anderson. She pointed to the
letters beside her.

"But you cannot suppose," had been her further indignant remark, "that
Elizabeth would ever dream of marrying him!"

"That, my dear old friend, is for her mother to find out," Delaine had
replied, not without a touch of venom. "I can certainly assure you that
Lady Merton is deeply interested in this young man, and he in her."

"Elizabeth--exiling herself in Canada--burying herself on the
prairies--when she might have everything here--the best of
everything--at her feet. It is inconceivable!"

Delaine had agreed that it was inconceivable, and they had mourned
together over the grotesque possibilities of life. "But you will save
her," he had said at last. "You will save her! You will point out to her
all she would be giving up--the absurdity, the really criminal waste
of it!"

On which he had gloomily taken his departure for an archaeological
congress at Berlin, and an autumn in Italy; and a few weeks later she
had recovered her darling Elizabeth, p