*

The summer wanes. The ripened grain is harvested and the chaff falling
from the sheaves on the threshing floor; the patient teams sniff the
first cool breeze and put their shoulders to the wheel; the wagons are
heaped in corn; the fields grow white for the picking. In the windings
of green valleys yellow leaves and red play fast and loose amid the
green, and go fluttering to the ground; the deer stalks abroad; glad
hunters blow their horns, and the unleashed hounds are joyful at the
scent of noble prey.

Twice has the moon changed, and Mell is still at the Bigge House,
showing up amid its polished refinements, as a choice bit of Corian
faience contrasted with cut-glass. Every day she spoke of going, but
every day there was some reason why she should not go and should stay.
Mrs. Rutland wanted her to stay; and Mell herself, whatever her
misgivings, whatever her struggles, whatever her trials, wanted, too,
on the whole, to stay. Here was a congenial atmosphere of style and
fashion, congenial occupation--or the congenial want of any, endless
variety of amusement, the hourly excitement of spirited contact with
kindred minds, and no vulgar father and mother to mortify her tender
sensibilities. Here, too, she was in the presence of the one being on
earth she most loved, and even to see him under cold restraint, was
better than not to see him at all. Sometimes it happened they sat near
each other for a few blissful seconds; sometimes it was a stolen look
into each other's eyes; sometimes an accidental touch of the hand when
Jerome was initiating the ladies into the ingenious methods of a
fore-overhand stroke or a back-underhand stroke, or the effective
results of skillful volleying--such casual trifles as these, unnoticed
by others, but more precious to them than "the golden wedge of
Ophir."

So the days passed on; rainy days, dry days, clear days, cloudy days,
bright days, dark days, every kind of day, and every one of them a
day's march nearer the imperishable day.

"There's a messenger outside, Miss Mellville, to say that your father
is sick and wishes you to come home."

Jerome, it was, who spoke.

"Father sick!" exclaimed Mell. "I will go at once."

"How provoking!" broke in Mrs. Rutland. "I wanted you particularly
to-day. Rube, too. Don't you remember he wants you to go to Pudney?"

"Yes, yes," interrupted Mell hastily. She did not wish Mrs. Rutland to
say before Jerome what Rube wanted her to go ther