"They've looked very beautiful, and they've been very beautiful. Oh, I've told her the sort you are!" the young man pursued. "He has done it," said Mrs. Gereth, turning her eyes avoidingly but not unperceivingly about her and in spite of herself dropping an opinion upon the few objects in the room. Fleda, on her side, in her silence, observed how characteristically she looked at Maggie's possessions before looking at Maggie's sister. The girl understood and at first had nothing to say; she was still dumb while Mrs. Gereth selected, with hesitation, a seat less distasteful than the one that happened to be nearest. On the sofa near the window the poor woman finally showed what the two past days had done for the age of her face. Her eyes at last met Fleda's. "It's the end."!

This was categoric; Fleda drank it in. "She takes such an interest in them?" "You should have told her, you know, that I had seen you in town only that one time," Fleda observed.

Her visitor turned sharp round. "You can?" There was a light in his strong stare. "You can understand it's spoiling her temper and making her come down on me? She behaves as if I were of no use to her at all!" "Marry him if he were to ask me? Most distinctly not!" "Have I kept you off to-day?" Fleda sadly shook her head, raising her arms a little and dropping them.