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dainty slippered foot to and fro in evident impatience.
    "What crime have I committed now, Melicent, against your code?" he
asked, not fully aroused from his reverie.
    "You've committed nothing; your sin is one of omission. I absolutely
believe you go through the world with your eyes, to all practical
purposes, closed. Don't you notice anything; any change?"
    "To be sure I do," said Hosmer, relying on a knowledge lent him by
previous similar experiences, and taking in the clinging artistic
drapery that enfolded her tall spare figure, "you've a new gown on. I
didn't think to mention it, but I noticed it all the same."
    This admission of a discernment that he had failed to make evident,
aroused Melicent's uncontrolled mirth.
    "A new gown!" and she laughed heartily. "A threadbare remnant! A thing
that holds by shreds and tatters."
    She went behind her brother's chair, taking his face between her
hands, and turning it upward, kissed him on the forehead. With his
head in such position, he could not fail to observe the brilliant
folds of muslin that were arranged across the ceiling to simulate the
canopy of a tent. Still holding his face, she moved it sidewards, so
that his eyes, knowing now what oflice was expected of them, followed
the line of decorations about the room.
    "It's immense, Mel; perfectly immense. When did you do it all?"
    "This afternoon, with Grégoire's help," she answered, looking proudly
at her work. "And my poor hands are in such condition! But really,
Dave," she continued, seating herself on the side of his chair, with
an arm about his neck, and he leaning his head back on the improvised
cushion, "I wonder that you ever got on in business, observing things
as little as you do."
    "Oh, that's different."
    "Well, I don't believe you see half that you ought to," adding
naively, "How did you and Mrs. Lafirme happen to come home together
this evening?"
    The bright lamp-light made the flush quite evident that arose to his
face under her near gaze.
    "We met in the woods; she was coming from Morico's."
    "David, do you know that woman is an angel. She's simply the most
perfect creature I ever knew."
    Melicent's emphasis of speech was a thing so recurrent, so singularly
her own, as to startle an unaccustomed hearer.
    "That opinion might carry some weight, Mel, if I hadn't heard it
scores of times from you, and of as many different women."
    "Indeed you have not. Mrs. Lafirme is exceptional. Really, when she
stands at the end of the veranda, giving orders to those darkies, her
face a little flushed, she's positively a queen."
    "As far as queenliness may be compatible with the angelic state,"
replied Hosmer, but not ill pleased with Melicent's exaggerated praise
of Thérèse.
    Neither had heard a noiseless step approaching, and they only became
aware of an added human presence, when Mandy's small voice was heard
to issue from Mandy's small body which stood in the mingled light and
shadow of the door-way.
    "Aunt B'lindy 'low supper on de table gittin' cole."
    "Come here, Mandy," cried Melicent, springing after the child. But
Mandy was flying back through the darkness. She was afraid of
Melicent.
    Laughing heartily, the girl disappeared into her bedroom, to make some
needed additions to her toilet; and Hosmer, waiting for her, returned
to his interrupted reflections. The words which he had spoken during a
moment of emotion to Thérèse, out in the piny woods, had served a
double purpose with him. They had shown him more plainly than he had
quite been certain of, the depth of his feeling for her; and also had
they settled his determination. He was not versed in the reading of a
woman's nature, and he found himself at a loss to interpret Thérèse's
actions. He recalled how she had looked away from him when he had
spoken the few tender words that were yet whirling in his memory; how
she had impetuously ridden ahead,—leaving him to follow alone; and
her incessant speech that had forced him into silence. All of which
might or