of their expressed opinions of Silverdale, both
the Vicomte and Mr. Spence remained during the week that followed.
Robert, who went off in the middle of it with his family to the seashore,
described it to Honora as a normal week. During its progress there came
and went a missionary from China, a pianist, an English lady who had
heard of the Institution, a Southern spinster with literary gifts, a
youthful architect who had not built anything, and a young lawyer
interested in settlement work.

The missionary presented our heroine with a book he had written about the
Yang-tse-kiang; the Southern lady suspected her of literary gifts; the
architect walked with her through the woods to the rustic shelter where
the Vicomte had kissed her hand, and told her that he now comprehended
the feelings of Christopher Wren when he conceived St. Paul's Cathedral,
of Michael Angelo when he painted the Sistine Chapel. Even the serious
young lawyer succumbed, though not without a struggle. When he had first
seen Miss Leffingwell, he confessed, he had thought her frivolous. He had
done her an injustice, and wished to acknowledge it before he left. And,
since she was interested in settlement work, he hoped, if she were going
through New York, that she would let him know. It would be a real
pleasure to show her what he was doing.

Best of all, Honora, by her unselfishness, endeared herself to her
hostess.

"I can't tell you what a real help you are to me, my dear," said that
lady. "You have a remarkable gift with people for so young a girl, and I
do you the credit of thinking that it all springs from a kind heart."

In the meantime, unknown to Mrs. Holt, who might in all conscience have
had a knowledge of what may be called social chemistry, a drama was
slowly unfolding itself. By no fault of Honora's, of course. There may
have been some truth in the quotation of the Vicomte as applied to her
--that she was destined to be loved only amidst the play of drama. If
experience is worth anything, Monsieur de Toqueville should have been an
expert in matters of the sex. Could it be possible, Honora asked herself
more than once, that his feelings were deeper than her feminine instinct
and, the knowledge she had gleaned from novels led her to suspect?

It is painful to relate that the irregularity and deceit of the life the
Vicomte was leading amused her, for existence at Silverdale was plainly
not of a kind to make a gentleman of the Vicomte's tem