h, my darling, if you could only be with me and feel this wind!' she
would think, with a great rush of pity and tenderness; 'if I could only
take your place a little and bear things for you!' and the sense that
she could do nothing for him would lie like a load on her heart.

'I think Audrey is getting over her trouble,' Geraldine said one day to
her husband. 'Baby is doing her good; and really, when she is playing
with him she seems just like her dear old self.'

'Of course she will get over it,' returned Mr. Harcourt impatiently;
'all girls do. I tell you what, Jerry: when we get back to Hillside we
will have Graham down to stop with us.'

'Oh, did you mean Lionel Graham all the time?' returned Geraldine,
opening her eyes very widely. 'Is he the man you always wanted for
Audrey? He is nice, of course--all the Grahams are nice--but he is
dreadfully ugly.'

'Nonsense, my love! Graham ugly, with that fine head of his! I tell you
the girl is lucky who gets such a clever fellow. I recollect he was
rather struck with her last spring. We will have him down and see if
they can take to each other.'

'But, Percy dear, you forget Audrey declares she is still engaged to
Cyril Blake.'

'Stuff and nonsense!' replied her husband, waxing exceedingly irate at
this remark. 'I wonder at you--I do indeed!--repeating anything so
ridiculous! Has not Blake given her up?--and very proper of him,
too--and has not your father forbidden her to have anything more to do
with him? My love, with all my respect for your judgment, I must differ
from you. Audrey is not the girl to propose anything so indelicate--so
altogether wanting in propriety--as to thrust herself upon a man who
very properly declines to marry her. No, no; we will have Graham down.
He is a first-rate fellow, and when he makes up his mind to a thing, he
sticks at nothing. That's the way to win a girl--eh, Jerry?' And
Geraldine blushed beautifully as she recalled Percival's bold wooing.

'Well, do as you like,' she said tranquilly; 'but I don't believe Audrey
will look at him.' And then she made signs to the nurse to bring her the
baby; and Mr. Harcourt forgot his match-making schemes as he played with
his son and heir.

Audrey was the only one who was glad when the time came for them to
return to Rutherford: her mother's face was a delicious sight to her;
and as she presided again at her little tea-table she gave vent to a
fervent 'Oh, how glad I am to be at home again!'