"You ought to have heard from him before this about it, Madge, should you not?" asked Lady Davyntry, looking up from her work; "it is time for a letter." "Not quite, according to papa's measurement, Nelly. He generally takes a fortnight to make up his mind about any question he is asked, and then another fortnight to put the result on paper. I had a letter from James, you know, but he said nothing about the picture." "We'll have it begun at once, Margaret," said Mr. Baldwin, who was standing by the verandah, looking out upon the shining, blue, foam-flecked sea. "I don't like a thing of that kind being put off. I wonder Dugdale does not answer for your father. And, by the bye," he continued, crossing the room, and taking a seat beside his wife, "they are tolerably busy just now at Chayleigh; it must be about the time of Mr. Meredith's arrival. What date did Dugdale mention?" "He thought about the 25th," said Margaret. As she spoke, the colour in her cheek waned, and there was a slight change in the expression of her face, which was a bright face now, but always mobile and a sure index to her feelings; a change which indicated to her husband, on whom no look of hers was ever lost, that the mention of Hayes Meredith's name had a disturbing effect upon her. He saw it, and understood it, and it vexed him, for, not with, her. This was the one weakness in Margaret which troubled her perfect peace and happiness, and through them his. Not all the unequalled contentment of her lot had power to obliterate the past for her so completely as to deprive association of its power to wound. There was one evil which all her husband's love and care could not keep quite away from her--the dark shadow of the bad bygone days when he as yet had no place in her life. She tried hard to fulfil her promise to her husband; she lived for him as truly and completely as ever any woman lived for any man, and she was a wonderfully happy human being.