ust at the wrong
minute, and--and--" The poor girl's tears smothered the rest.

"Don't let him go, dearie," came the answer, when she had heard the
whole story, the girl on her knees, her head in her lap, the wee hand
stroking the fluff of golden hair dishevelled in her grief.

"Oh, but he won't stay!" moaned Kate. "He says he is going to Rio--way
out to South America to join his Uncle Harry."

"He won't go, dearie--not if you tell him the truth and make him tell
you the truth. Don't let your pride come in; don't beat around the bush
or make believe you are hurt or misunderstood, or that you don't care.
You do care. Better be a little humble now than humble all your life. It
only takes a word. Hold out your hand and say: 'I'm sorry, Mark--please
forgive me.' If he loves you--and he does--"

The girl raised her head: "Oh! Cousin Annie! How do you know?"

She laughed gently. "Because he was here, dearie, half an hour ago
and told me so. He thought you owed him the dance, and he was a little
jealous of Tom."

"But Tom had asked me--"

"Yes--and so had Mark--"

"Yes--but he had no right--" She was up in arms again: she wouldn't--she
couldn't--and again an outburst of tears choked her words.

The Little Gray Lady had known Kate's mother, now dead, and what might
have happened but for a timely word--and she knew to her own sorrow
what had happened for want of one. Kate and Mark should not repeat that
experience if she could help it. She had saved the mother in the old
days by just such a word. She would save the daughter in the same way.
And the two were much alike--same slight, girlish figure; same blond
hair and blue eyes; same expression, and the same impetuous, high-strung
temperament. "If that child's own mother walked in this minute I
couldn't tell 'em apart, they do favor one another so," old Margaret
had told her mistress when she opened the door for the girl, and she
was right. Pomford village was full of these hereditary likenesses. Mark
Dab-ney, whom all the present trouble was about, was so like his father
at his age that his Uncle Harry had picked Mark out on a crowded dock
when the lad had visited him in Rio the year before, although he had
not seen the boy's father for twenty years--so strong was the family
likeness.

If there was to be a quarrel it must not be between the Dabneys and the
Daytons, of all families. There had been suffering enough in the old
days.

"Listen, dearie," she said in her