e for. It was to have
her picture taken. "I am very sorry, but if father is really sick I
ought to go."

"Rhesus is under saddle," said Jerome. "Shall I ride over and find out
just how he is? I can do so in a very few minutes."

"No!" said Mell, with quick speech and restrained emphasis. Whom would
he see there? What would he hear? Her mother in an old cotton frock,
talking bad grammar. And Jerome was so delicate in his tastes, so
fastidious and aesthetic.

"No," said Mell, decidedly. "I'm much obliged, but--"

"Yes," interposed Mrs. Rutland, "I wish you would go, for Rube is not
here and I've no notion of letting Mell go unless it is necessary."

"Did you say I must not?" inquired Jerome, addressing Mell and not
moving.

"Go, if Mrs. Rutland wishes it," stammered Mell, furiously angry with
herself that she could not utter such commonplace words to him without
getting all in a tremor. They were all blind, these people, or they
must have seen, long ago, how it stood with Jerome and herself.

He was back in an incredibly short space of time.

"I saw your mother," Jerome reported. (Great heavens! in her
poke-berry homespun, without a doubt!) "Your father is quite sick, but
not dangerously so. He only fancied seeing you, but can wait until
to-morrow."

While the old man waited, Mell had her pretty face photographed for
Rube.

He drove her home in the buggy the next morning. Coming in sight of
the quiet and shade of the old farm-house and recalling, as a
forgotten dream, its honest industry, its homely manners, its sweet
simplicity, Mell marvelled at her own sensations. Could it be
gladness, this feeling that swept over her at sight of the old home?
Yes, it was gladness. Perplexed in mind, heavy at heart, and fretted
to the lowest depths of her soul by this struggle within her, which
seemed to be never ending, Mell was glad to get back into the quietude
of the old farm house after the continuous strain and excitement of
the past few weeks. The flowers in the little garden stirred gently in
the breeze; there was a gleam of blue sky above the low roof; birds
chirped softly in the euonymus hedge under the window of her own
little room, and the tranquillity and serenity and staidness of the
spot soothed her feverish mind and calmed her feverish spirit. It was
lonely, desolate, mean, and poor, but none the less a refuge from the
storms of a higher region; from the weariness of pleasure and the
burden of empty enjoym