, he
growled out something about not liking company on Sunday. He is a queer
old cove, and does not seem to care for anybody but Miss Amy. He is
devoted to her, and she is a lovely woman, and must once have been
brilliant, but she puzzles me greatly. She seems to be rational on every
subject except her life in California. If any allusion is made to that
she looks dazed at once, and says, 'I can't talk about it. I don't
remember.'"

"My father died in California, and my mother is there now," Eloise said
sadly.

Jack had not supposed she had a mother. Mrs. Brown, who sat beside him
at the commencement exercises in Mayville, had spoken of her as an
orphan, and he replied, "I had somehow thought your mother dead."

"No; oh, no!" Eloise answered quickly. "She is not dead; she is--"

She stopped suddenly, and Jack knew by her voice that her mother was a
painful subject, and he began at once to speak of something else. He was
a good talker, and Eloise a good listener, and neither took any heed to
the lapse of time, until there was the sound of wheels before the house.
A carriage had stopped to let some one out; then it went on, and Howard
Crompton came up the walk and knocked at the door just as Jack had done
an hour before.

"Pull the bobbin and come in," Jack called out, and, a good deal
astonished, Howard walked in, looking unutterable things when he saw
Jack there before him, seemingly perfectly at home and perfectly happy,
and in very close proximity to Eloise, who wondered what Mrs. Biggs
would say if she came and found both the "high bucks" there.

"Hallo!" Jack said, while Howard responded, "Hallo! What brought you
here?"

"A wish to see Miss Smith. What brought you?" was Jack's reply, and
Howard responded, "A wish to see Miss Smith, of course. You didn't
suppose I came to see Mrs. Biggs, did you? Where is the old lady?"

Eloise explained that she had gone to church, and Jack told of the key
under the mat, and the talk flowed on; and Eloise could not forbear
telling them of Mrs. Biggs's wish not to have the Sabbath "desiccated"
by visitors.

"A regular Mrs. Malaprop," Jack said, while Howard suggested that they
leave before she came home. "We can put the key under the mat, and
she'll never know of the 'desiccation,'" he said.

Jack looked doubtfully at Eloise, who shook her head.

"No," she said, "I shall tell her you have been here. It would be a
deception not to."

"As you like. And it's too late now,