d. You
can't think what a business woman I have become."

Denise raises her eyebrows a little. "And Mr. Grandon?" she asks.

"Oh, I expect he will never want to come back home! Denise, wouldn't it
be lovely if we lived here, with Cecil? I wish he might want to," in
her incoherent eagerness. "It will be another home to us, you see,
where I shall feel quite free. Why, I could even come in the kitchen
and cook a dish!"

With that she laughs delightedly, her sweet young face in a glow.

The visitors go up-stairs to see the prospect, which is lovely from the
upper windows. "This is--this was papa's room," correcting herself. She
does not think of him any more as in the grave, but in that other
wonderful country with the one he loves so dearly.

"Denise," she says, one day, shocking the old woman, "why should I wear
black clothes when papa is so happy? It is almost as if he had gone to
Europe to meet mamma. Sometimes I long to have him back, then it seems
as if I envied her, when she only had him three years, so long ago. Why
should any one be miserable if I went to them both?"

"You talk wildly, child," answers Denise, quite at loss for an
argument.

But now, when they come down, Denise has a cup of tea, some delicious
bread and butter, cream cheese that she can make to perfection, and a
dish of peaches. Violet is as surprised as they, and rejoices to play
hostess. They are in the midst of this impromptu picnic when Grandon
looks in the doorway, and laughs with the light heart of a boy.

"I was coming to talk with Denise," he says.

"I have made my bargain," the professor answers, in a tone of elation.
"It is delightful. I shall be so charmed that I shall lose the zest of
the traveller and become a hermit. I shall invite my friends to royal
feasts."

Violet has poured a cup of tea and motions to Floyd, who comes to sit
beside her. She is so alluring in her youth and freshness that he
sometimes wishes there was no marriage tie between them, and they could
begin over again.

"Whatever happened to you, Gertrude?" he asks. "I am amazed that
tea-drinking has such a tempting power."

"The fraulein is to come often," says Freilgrath, lapsing into his
native idiom. "It has done her good already; her eyes have brightened.
She stays within doors too much."

Gertrude's wan face flushes delicately.

When they reach home the dinner-bell rings, and they all feel like
truants who have been out feasting on forbidden fruit.