e! I will go to
papa."

"Pardon me," said the elder sister, who was nearer the door, "you need
not trouble yourself: I am going now."

She went into the small room which was called her father's study, but
which was in reality a sort of museum. She closed the door behind her.

"I have just had the pleasure of an interview with Carry, papa," she
said, with a certain bitterness of tone, "and she has tried hard to make
me as miserable as I can be. If I am to have another dose of it from
you, papa, I may as well have it at once. I have promised to marry Sir
Keith Macleod."

She sank down in an easy-chair. There was a look on her face which
plainly said, "Now do your worst; I cannot be more wretched than I am."

"You have promised to marry Sir Keith Macleod?" he repeated, slowly, and
fixing his eyes on her face.

He did not break into any rage, and accuse Macleod of treachery or her
of filial disobedience. He knew that she was familiar with that kind of
thing. What he had to deal with was the immediate future, not the past.

"Yes," she answered.

"Well," he said, with the same deliberation of tone, "I suppose you have
not come to me for advice, since you have, acted so far for yourself. If
I were to give you advice, however, it would be to break your promise as
soon as you decently can, both for his sake and for your own."

"I thought you would say so," she said, with a sort of desperate mirth.
"I came to have all my wretchedness heaped on me at once. It is a very
pleasing sensation. I wonder if I could express it on the stage. That
would be making use of my new experiences--as you have taught me--"

But here she burst into tears; and then got up and walked impatiently
about the room; and finally dried her eyes, with shame and mortification
visible on her face.

"What have _you_ to say to me, papa? I am a fool to mind what a
schoolgirl says."

"I don't know that I have anything to say," he observed, calmly. "You
know your own feelings best."

And then he regarded her attentively.

"I suppose when you marry you will give up the stage."

"I suppose so," she said, in a low voice.

"I should doubt," he said, with quite a dispassionate air, "your being
able to play one part for a lifetime. You might get tired--and that
would be awkward for your husband and yourself. I don't say anything
about your giving up all your prospects, although I had great pride in
you and a still greater hope. That is for your own cons