ng to make up for all that had gone amiss.

And mamma, already somewhat propitiated, it had seemed, by the return of
the money, said presently, with some emotion of her own, that she would
try to regard it as a closed episode. She, with her tireless energies,
was not one to cry forever over milk hopelessly spilt. But neither was
she one to temper justice with too much mercy, and her final word on the
matter was a final one, indeed: "But of course you can never make it up
to me, Carlisle, never...." And Carlisle, rising, knew even better than
mamma how sad and true this was. There was only one thing that her
mother had wanted of her, and that thing she had not done. Life, even on
this day of song and mist, was seen to be inexorable....

She was in her room for a little while, and it came to be eleven
o'clock: five hours and a half.... While she unwisely lingered there,
dreamily irresolute between a walk and a drive, she was summoned to the
drawing-room by a call from Mattie Allen, not seen of her since the
dinner at the New Arlington last week. Mattie stayed a long time; and
before she went--of course--other callers had drifted in....

"Are you going to Sue Louise's bridge to-night?" demanded Mattie,
continuing to inspect her with evident curiosity.

"Oh, Mats! I forgot all about it--horrors!... And I've made another
engagement!"

"That means you don't want to go, Cally. You know it does...."

Cally confessed to a certain want of enthusiasm; asked her friend if
she, too, didn't weary of their little merry-go-round at times. Nothing
of the sort, however, would be admitted by Mats, who was now known to be
having a really serious try for J. Forsythe Avery.

"Dear," she went on before long, "do you know you seem to be changing
_entirely_ lately? And toward me specially.... I--I've wondered a
_great_ deal if I've done something to offend you."

Cally embraced her; spoke with reassuring tenderness. And there was
compunction in these endearments. She and Mattie had been intimate
friends as long as she could remember; and now it had come over her
suddenly that it would nevermore be with them quite as it had been
before. Must life be this way, that greetings over there would always
mean farewells here?...

And then Mats, quite mollified, was speaking in her artless way of Hugo
Canning, who had so obviously been on her mind all along.

"People keep asking me," she said, still just a little plaintive, "and I
have to say