"By not looking like a fool!" cried Mrs. Gereth very sharply. She kissed her, however, on the spot, to make up for this roughness, and summarily took off her hat, which, on coming into the house, our young lady had not removed. She applied a friendly touch to the girl's hair and gave a businesslike pull to her jacket. "I say don't look like an idiot, because you happen not to be one, not the least bit. I'm idiotic; I've been so, I've just discovered, ever since our first days together. I've been a precious donkey; but that's another affair." "She knows how awfully kind you've been to me," Owen said. He showed such discomfiture that he really gave away their situation; and Fleda found herself divided between the hope that he would take leave and the wish that he should see the whole of what the occasion might enable her to bring to pass for him.!

"Give them up to whom?" Mrs. Gereth more boldly stared. 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.

"Go away?" "Then he's as big a donkey as his mother! But you know you must account for their delay," Mrs. Gereth remarked. "It will seem very strange to me if you want me. But whatever you ask, whatever you need, that I will always do."