arted away, crying, "I'm going to get pen and
paper for you to write your note right now."

"Lydia," said Mrs. Sandworth, in a low tone, "Daniel Rankin wants to
speak with you again. Your godfather is waiting here in the hall to know
if you'll see him. He didn't want to _force_ an interview on you if you
didn't want it. He wants to see you but he wanted you to decide in
perfect _freedom_--"

The tragic, troubled, helpless face that Lydia showed at this speech was
a commentary on the last word. She looked around the room, her eyebrows
drawn into a knot, one hand at her throat, but she did not answer. Her
aunt thought she had not understood. "Just collect your thoughts,
Lydia--"

The girl beat one slim fist inside the other with a sudden nervous
movement. "But that's what I can't do, Aunt Julia. You know how easily I
get rattled--I don't know what I'm--I _can't_ collect my thoughts."

As the older woman opened her lips to speak again she cut her short with
a broken whispered appeal. "No, no; I can't--see him--? I can't stand
any more--tell him I guess I'll be all right--it's settled now--Mother's
told all these--I like Paul. I _do_ like him! Mother's told everybody
here--no, no--I can't, Aunt Julia! I _can't_!"

Mrs. Sandworth, her eyes full of tears, opened her arms impulsively, but
Lydia drew back. "Oh, let me alone!" she wailed. "I'm so tired!"

Madame Boyle caught this through the clatter of voices. "Why, poor
Maddemwaselle!" she cried, her kindly, harassed, fatigued face melting.
"Sit down. Sit down. I can show the ladies about this collar just as
well that way--if they'll ever look."

Mrs. Sandworth had disappeared.

Madeleine, coming with the pen and ink, was laughing as she told them,
"I didn't know Dr. Melton was in the house. I ran into him pacing up and
down in the hall like a little bear, and just now I saw him--isn't he
too comical! He must have heard our chatter--I saw him running down the
walk as fast as he could go it, his fingers in his ears as if he were
trying to get away from a dynamite bomb before it went bang."

"He hasn't much patience with many necessary details of life," said Mrs.
Emery with dignity. She turned her criticism of her doctor into a
compliment to her brother's widow by adding, "Whatever he would do
without Julia to look after him, I'm sure none of us can imagine."

"He is a very original character," said Miss Burgess, discriminatingly.

Madeleine dismissed the subject with