e?"

He stopped in the garden path and looked upon the picture she made
standing in the sunlight against the blazing borders, her wide hat
casting a shadow on her face. And the smile which she had known so well
since childhood, indulgent, quizzical, with a touch of sadness, was in
his eyes. She was conscious of a slight resentment. Was there, in fact,
no change in her as the result of the events of those momentous ten
months since she had seen him? And rather than a tolerance in which there
was neither antagonism nor envy, she would have preferred from Peter an
open disapproval of luxury, of the standards which he implied were hers.
She felt that she had stepped into another world, but he refused to be
dazzled by it. He insisted upon treating her as the same Honora.

"How did you leave Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary?" she asked.

They were counting the days, he said, until she should return, but they
did not wish to curtail her visit. They did not expect her next week, he
knew.

Honora coloured again.

"I feel--that I ought to go to them," she said.

He glanced at her as though her determination to leave Silverdale so soon
surprised him.

"They will be very happy to see you, Honora," he said. "They have been
very lonesome."

She softened. Some unaccountable impulse prompted her to ask: "And you?
Have you missed me--a little?"

He did not answer, and she saw that he was profoundly affected. She laid
a hand upon his arm.

"Oh, Peter, I didn't mean that," she cried. "I know you have. And I have
missed you--terribly. It seems so strange seeing you here," she went on
hurriedly. "There are so many' things I want to show you. Tell me how it
happened hat you came on to New York."

"Somebody in the firm had to come," he said.

"In the firm!" she repeated. She did not grasp the full meaning of this
change in his status, but she remembered that Uncle Tom had predicted it
one day, and that it was an honour. "I never knew any one so secretive
about their own affairs! Why didn't you write me you had been admitted to
the firm? So you are a partner of Judge Brice."

"Brice, Graves, and Erwin," said Peter; "it sounds very grand, doesn't
it? I can't get used to it myself."

"And what made you call yourself an errand boy?" she exclaimed
reproachfully. "When I go back to the house I intend to tell Joshua Holt
and--and Mr. Spence that you are a great lawyer."

Peter laughed.

"You'd better wait a few years before you say that,