Again the good lady looked hard at her young hostess. "I came, I believe, Fleda, just, you know, to plead with you." She checked him with a gesture. "Don't tell me what she did!" She had colored up to her eyes, where, as with the effect of a blow in the face, she quickly felt the tears gathering. It was a sudden drop in her great flight, a shock to her attempt to watch over what Mona was entitled to. While she had been straining her very soul in this attempt, the object of her magnanimity had been pronouncing her "not honest." She took it all in, however, and after an instant was able to speak with a smile. She would not have been surprised to learn, indeed, that her smile was strange. "You had said a while ago that your mother and I quarreled about you. It's much more true that you and Mona have quarreled about me."!

"Neither do I, as yet. I must think—I must pray!" the girl pursued, smiling. "I can only say to you that I'll try. I want to try, you know—I want to help you." He stood looking at her so long on this that she added with much distinctness: "So you must leave me, please, quite alone with her. You must go straight back." "Then of course she won't like your changing."

"Owen—what I've done? I haven't the least idea," said Mrs. Gereth. Owen looked out into Raphael Road. "She did care for me awfully. But she can't stand the strain." "You know better than I," said Fleda, speaking with high extravagance.