Fleda appeared to consider: she appreciated her visitor's magnanimous use of the plural. "Mona won't die," she replied. This was categoric; Fleda drank it in. "She takes such an interest in them?"!

"Do you mean in the way of justifying you?" "I see. And you were never sure."

"Misses them—rather! She was awfully sweet on them." Fleda remembered how sweet Mona had been, and reflected that if that was the sort of plea he had prepared it was indeed as well he shouldn't see his mother. This was not all she wanted to know, but it came over her that it was all she needed. "You see it puts me in the position of not carrying out what I promised," Owen said. "As she says herself"—he hesitated an instant—"it's just as if I had obtained her under false pretenses." Just before, when he spoke with more drollery than he knew, it had left Fleda serious; but now his own clear gravity had the effect of exciting her mirth. She laughed out, and he looked surprised, but went on: "She regards it as a regular sell." "What bearing have her feelings, pray?" Fleda asked. "All day long," Fleda smiled.