“Mad?” suggested Mabin, more with her lips and eyebrows than with her voice. Langford nodded emphatically. “Oh, dear!” Then Mabin was silent, trying to recollect all that she had heard in the family circle about the gentleman who was so anxious to take the house. And she found that it did not amount to much. A rich man, a bachelor, of quiet habits, who disliked unnecessary fuss and noise, and whose references Mr. Rose’s lawyer had declared to be unimpeachable--this was the sum of the family knowledge of Mr. Banks. “Did he come quite alone?” asked Mabin, in spite of the mute entreaties of Langford that she would take herself off. “Yes, Miss Mabin, quite alone. And he said his luggage would be sent on.” After a short pause, during which Mabin made up her mind that there was nothing to be done but to accept the new-comer as the genuine article until he proved to be an impostor, she turned reluctantly to go. “Good-by, Langford. Bring me my things, and mind you don’t forget to feed my canary. And you might come and see me sometimes in the evening, when you can get away. I think I shall be lonely.” And indeed there were tears in the eyes of the girl, who was already homesick now that she found herself thus suddenly denied admittance at the familiar portal. It was in a very sober and chastened mood that the young girl arrived, a few minutes later, at the gate of “The Towers,” but the welcome she received would have put heart into a misanthrope. Mrs. Dale was waiting in the garden, her pretty, fair face aglow with impatience to receive her friend. She drew the arm of Mabin, who was considerably taller than herself, through hers, and led her at once into the house, to the room which Mabin had been in before. The table was laid for luncheon, and Mabin observed with surprise that there were two places ready, although she had not promised to come till the afternoon. “There!” cried Mrs. Dale, triumphantly, pointing to the table, “was I not inspired? The fact is,” she went on, with a smile which was almost tearful, “I was so anxious for you to come that I had begun to tell myself that I should be disappointed after all, so I had your place laid to ‘make believe,’ like the children. And now you are really here. Oh, it seems too good to be true!” Mabin was pleased by this reception, as she could not fail to be, but she was also a little puzzled. She was conscious of no attractions in herself which could explain such enthusiasm on her account. “I am afraid,” she said shyly, “that I shall turn out a bitter disappointment. You can’t know much about girls, Mrs. Dale, or you would feel, as they all do at home, that there is a time, which I am going through now, when a girl is just as awkward and as stupid and as generally undesirable as she can possibly be.”