have
manufactured this little romance out of odds and ends that McLean has
now and then reported from his conversation. I dare say there isn't a
bit of it true, for Mr. Laudersdale isn't a man to publish his affairs;
but _I_ believe it. One thing is certain: Mrs. Laudersdale withdrew from
society one autumn and returned one spring, and has queened it
ever since."

"Is Mr. Laudersdale with you?"

"No. But he will come with their daughter shortly."

"And with what do you all occupy yourselves, pray?"

"Oh, with trifles and tea, as you would suppose us to do. Mrs. Purcell
gossips and lounges, as if she were playing with the world for
spectator. Mrs. Laudersdale lounges, and attacks things with her
finger-ends, as if she were longing to remould them. Mrs. McLean gossips
and scolds, as if it depended on her to keep the world in order."

"Are you going to keep me under the hedge all night?"

"This is pretty well! Hush! Who is that?"

As Mrs. McLean spoke, a figure issued from the tall larches on the left,
and crossed the grass in front of them,--a woman, something less tall
than a gypsy queen might be, the round outlines of her form rich and
regular, with a certain firm luxuriance, still wrapped in a morning-robe
of palm-spread cashmere. In her hand she carried various vines and
lichens that had maintained their orange-tawny stains under the winter's
snow, and the black hair that was folded closely over forehead and
temple was crowned with bent sprays of the scarlet maple-blossom. As
vivid a hue dyed her cheek through warm walking, and with a smile of
unconscious content she passed quickly up the slope and disappeared
within the doorway. She impressed the senses of the beholder like some
ripe and luscious fruit, a growth of sunshine and summer.

"Well," said Mrs. McLean, drawing breath again, "who is it?"

"Really, I cannot tell," replied Mr. Raleigh.

"Nor guess?"

"And that I dare not."

"Must I tell you?"

"Was it Mrs. Laudersdale?"

"And shouldn't you have known her?"

"Scarcely."

"Mercy! Then how did you know me? She is unaltered."

"If that is Mrs. Purcell, at the window, she does not recognize me, you
see; neither did -----. Both she and yourself are nearly the same; one
could not fail to know either of you; but of the Mrs. Laudersdale of
thirteen years ago there remains hardly a vestige."

If Mrs. McLean, at this testimony, indulged in that little inward
satisfaction which the most generous wo