t your
dress is mended."

"Not a bit, thanks to your clever fingers. Now I'll go find some flowers
to wear, and then I'm off. I'll come back to put you to bed, and you'll
send Bob over if you want the least thing, won't you, even the least?"

Charlotte went out into her garden, holding her skirts carefully away
from possible touch of bush or briar. Late August flowers were many, but
among them were none that pleased her. She came away therefore without a
touch of colour upon her white attire, yet seeming to need none, the
bloom upon her cheek was so clear, the dusk of her hair so rich.

"Isn't she fascinating?" said Winifred Chester in the ear of John Leaver,
as Charlotte came in. "I never saw a girl who seemed so radiantly well
and happy, with so little to make her so. I think she and Madam Chase
must be very poor, all the nice things they have seem so old, and the new
things so very simple. Ellen says the family was a very fine one."

"Very fine," he agreed. His eyes were upon Charlotte as she greeted her
hosts. He answered Winifred's further comments absently. He bowed gravely
in response to Charlotte's recognition of him, then turned and talked
with the pretty girl whom Ellen had asked him to take in to dinner.

At the table Miss Ruston and Dr. Leaver found themselves nearly opposite.
Leaver talked conscientiously with his companion, then devoted himself to
Winifred Chester, upon his other side. Returning to do his duty by Miss
Everett, he found her eager to discuss those opposite.

"They say Miss Ruston does the most wonderful photographs," she observed.
"One would know she was devoted to some art, wouldn't one? The way that
frock is cut about her shoulders--only an artist would venture to wear it
like that, without a single touch of colour. Every other woman I know
would have put on a string of gold beads or pearls or at least a pendant
of some sort."

For a moment Leaver forgot to answer. He had not looked at Charlotte
since he had first taken his seat. Now, with Miss Everett calling
his attention to her, and everybody else, including the subject of
their interest, absorbed in their own affairs, he let his eyes rest
lingeringly upon her. He had had only brief glimpses of her since she
had come to town, and had seen her at such times always in the summer
street-or-garden attire which she constantly wore. Now he saw her under
conditions which vividly brought back to him other scenes. The white lace
gown she