tired with her
excursion, I heard, and longing for a night's rest. I sat down by my
mother, and we talked until midnight, while Helen sang ballads to her
father in the next room in a rare contralto voice which had gained
strength and richness since I heard it last.

When, finally, Mr. Floyd--who always put off going to bed as a final
necessity--allowed me to go up stairs, I found inside my dressing-case a
folded paper on which these lines were written: "The prettiest hour of
the day at The Headlands is at seven o'clock in the morning, down among
the rocks."

I should have felt no doubt whose hand had put the notelet there even if
it had failed to breathe the perfume of violets, which no one who knew
Georgy Lenox could hesitate to recognize.

CHAPTER XVI.

It was full two o'clock before I began to think of sleeping, but
nevertheless I was on the rocks next morning at seven; and my
punctuality was rewarded by the sight of Miss Lenox walking on the shore
in a white dress. I clambered down and joined her before she seemed
aware of my presence: then she turned and laughed softly in my face.
"What an early riser you are!" she exclaimed. "You have brought
excellent habits home from the lazy Old World."

"But it would be such a pity to miss 'the prettiest hour of the day'!" I
retorted quickly.

"Were you surprised to meet me last night?" she asked.

"Perhaps so. I had at least not expected it. I was in Belfield on
Wednesday, and supposed that you were there."

"You could easily have found out my whereabouts if you had called upon
mamma. I should not have expected you to be in Belfield without going
near our house."

"Mrs. Lenox has too often snubbed me in my boyhood for me to count upon
her grace now," I returned. "But I hope your mother is very well."

But it was very droll to me that I had embarked upon something like an
adventure for the sake of talking about old Mrs. Lenox. Still, Miss
Georgy was well worth coming out to see with the flush of healthy sleep
still upon cheek and lip and the morning light in her eyes.

"Mamma is well," said she soberly. "Poor papa too: though he is worked
to death, he is still quite well."

"What does he do, then?" I asked. I knew that he was one of the
book-keepers at the factories, but I wanted her to be the first to speak
Jack's name.

"As soon as Mr. John Holt went into the business," she returned, very
coolly, "he gave my father a position. He had promised to do i