orld but Rose Stribling.

"Thank you. How lovely your cedars are!" The wan light shone again in
Alice Rokeby's face. Then she threw her fur stole from her shoulders as
if she were fainting under the weight of it, and passed on, with her
dragging step, through the lengthening shadows on the pavement.

CHAPTER XV

CORINNA OBSERVES

Yes, Patty was in love, this Corinna decided after a single glance. The
girl appeared to have changed miraculously over-night, for her hard
brightness had melted in the warmth of some glowing flame that burned at
her heart. Never had she looked so Ariel-like and elusive; never had she
brought so hauntingly to Corinna's memory the loveliness of youth and
spring that is vivid and fleeting.

"Can it be that Stephen is really in earnest?" asked the older woman of
her disturbed heart; and the next instant, shaking her wise head, she
added, "Poor little redbird! What does she know of life outside of a
cedar tree?"

At luncheon the Governor, in an effort to hide some perfectly evident
anxiety, over-shot the mark as usual, Corinna reflected. It was his way,
she had observed, to cover a mental disturbance with pretended hilarity.
There was, as always when he was unnatural and ill at ease, a touch of
coarseness in his humour, a grotesque exaggeration of his rhetorical
style. With his mind obviously distracted he told several anecdotes of
dubious wit; and while he related them Miss Spencer sat primly silent
with her gaze on her plate. Only Corinna laughed, as she laughed at any
honest jest however out of place. After all, if you began to judge men
by the quality of their jokes where would it lead you?

Patty, with her eyes drooping beneath her black lashes, sat lost in a
day dream. She dressed now, by Corinna's advice, in straight slim gowns
of serge or velvet; and to-day she was wearing a scant little frock of
blue serge, with a wide white collar that gave her the look of a
delicate boy. There were wonderful possibilities in the girl, Corinna
mused, looking her over. She had not a single beautiful feature, except
her remarkable eyes; and yet the softness and vagueness of her face lent
a poetic and impressionistic charm to her appearance. "In that dress she
looks as if she had stepped out of the Middle Ages, and might step back
again at any minute," thought Corinna. "I wonder if I can be mistaken in
Stephen, and if he is seriously in love with her?"

"Patty is grooming me for the White Ho