entrance, but as she spoke
a sudden thought shook his soul like a tempest.

"What is it?" Elizabeth asked.

"Oh, guess, guess!"

"But I never can guess," she replied, seeming to enter into the spirit
of the thing.

"You try, Grant. Come, do credit to your Yankee descent!"

He rose suddenly and stood looking full in his wife's face, fixing her
glance with a quick thrill of terror, which the least thing unusual in
his manner caused her now.

Elsie began to dance up and down before the hearth, exclaiming:

"Oh! you provoking things--you stupid owls! Now do guess--oh! Grant,
just try. Tell me what I have found."

Mellen's eyes had not moved from his wife's face.

"Have you found Elizabeth's bracelet?" he asked in a tone which made the
unhappy woman shiver from head to foot, and startled Elsie out of her
playfulness.

"Why, how did you think of that?" demanded Elsie; "did she tell you?
Have you----"

She stopped short, the words frozen on her lips by the look which
Grantley Mellen still fixed upon his wife. Without changing that steady
gaze, he extended his hand towards Elsie.

"Give me the bracelet!" he said, in the cold, hard tone which, with him,
was the sure forerunner of a tempest of passion.

Elsie hesitated; she had grown nearly as pale as Elizabeth herself, but
she looked like a frightened child. Elizabeth did not speak or move, but
though her face was absolutely death-like, her eyes met her husband's
with unflinching firmness.

"Give me the bracelet!" repeated Mellen.

"Here it is!" exclaimed Elsie, nervously, putting the bracelet in his
hand. "What is the matter with you, Grant? I am sure there is nothing to
make a fuss about. I found the bracelet among a lot of rubbish in one of
Bessie's drawers--I suppose she forgot it was there."

Grantley Mellen turned furiously towards her.

"Are you learning to cheat and lie also?" he said.

Elsie burst into a passionate flood of tears.

"You are just as cruel and bad as you can be!" she moaned. "You ought to
be ashamed to talk so to me! I haven't done anything; I thought you
would be so pleased at my having found the bracelet, and here you behave
in this way. You needn't blame me, Grant--I don't know what it all
means! I am sure your dear mamma never thought you would speak to me
like that! I wish I was dead and buried by her--then you'd be sorry----"

"I am not angry with you, child," interrupted Mellen, softened at once
by this childish appeal. "G