spilled the boiling water on the tray and on her own hand.

"My dear!" said Mrs. Houghton, "you have scalded yourself!"

And, indeed, Eleanor whitened with the pain of her smarting, puffing
fingers. But she said, her eyes fixed on Edith, "What _are_ they talking
about?" Mrs. Houghton's look of surprise made her add: "Edith seems so
interested. I just wondered...." She had caught a phrase or two:

"I can take the spring course,--it's three months. I think our
University Domestic Science Department is just every bit as good as any
of the Eastern ones."

"Where did you two meet each other?" Eleanor called, sharply.

"Why, I told you," Edith said, coming over to the tea table; "I dragged
him from his desk!"

"Come, Edith, we must go," Mrs. Houghton said, rising.

"Why don't you stay to dinner?" Maurice urged--but Eleanor was silent.
"If you are in town next week, Skeezics, you've got to put up here.
Understand? Tell her so, Eleanor!"

Eleanor said nothing. Mrs. Houghton said she was afraid it wouldn't be
convenient.

Eleanor said nothing.

"Of course you will come here!" Maurice said; he was sharply angry at
his wife.

In the momentary and embarrassing pause, the color flew into Edith's
face, but she was elaborately indifferent. "Good-by, Eleanor; good-by,
Maurice!"

"I'm going to escort you to the hotel," Maurice said; and, over his
shoulder to Eleanor: "I've got to rush off to St. Louis to-night,
Eleanor. That Greenleaf business. Has Mrs. O'Brien brought my things
home?"'

"I'll see," she said, mechanically....

Nobody had much to say on that walk to the hotel; but when Maurice had
left them, and the two ladies were in their room, Edith faced her
mother:

"What _is_ the matter?"

"You mean with Eleanor? She has a headache, I suppose."

"Mother, don't squirm! You know just as well as I do that she doesn't
want me to stay with them. Why not?" She did not wait for an answer,
which, indeed, her mother could not immediately find. "Well, Heaven
knows I'm not pining to be with her! I shall run in to-morrow morning,
and tell her that Mrs. Newbolt asked me to stay with her.... Mother, how
_could_ Maurice have fallen in love with Eleanor?" Her voice trembled;
she went over to the window and stood looking down into the street; her
hands were clenched behind her, and her soft young chin was rigid. "He
was just a boy," she said; her eyes were blurring so that the street was
a gray fog; "how _could_ Eleanor?" It