Fleda listened; she was deeply mystified. "How kind you are to me!" she presently said. The picture suggested so many questions that she scarcely knew which to ask first. She took one at a venture. "You really have it from Mr. Gereth that he'll give us his company?" "To give them up?" Fleda hesitated again.!

"Because you're so awfully keen." "Of course there are many things she hasn't taken," Fleda continued.

Here was a faint illumination with which Mrs. Gereth instantly mingled her fire. "You dear old wretch!" she exclaimed; and she again, with ferocity, embraced her young friend. "Fancy your putting a question so indelicate? I should have put it—I mean in your place; but I'm quite coarse, thank God!" Fleda felt privately that she herself was coarse, or at any rate would presently have to be; and Mrs. Gereth, with a purpose that struck the girl as increasing, continued: "What, then, was the day to be? Wasn't it just one of these?" "I'm unhappy because I torment you, and you don't understand me."