“Enough--I will make it enough--to keep you from wanting anything, and give you all the luxuries to which you were born. But not enough to warrant us in living at Honeywood. I cannot do it--not even for your sake, Agatha.” “I do not see the matter as you do.” “You cannot, dear! I know that. But in this one thing--when, on various accounts, I can judge better than she can--will not my wife trust me?” And Anne Valery's glance seemed to echo, “Trust him.” Agatha, tried to the utmost of her small stock of patience, grew more bitter than she could have believed it possible to be with her husband and Anne Valery. “You expect too much,” she said, sharply. “I cannot trust, even though I may be compelled to obey.” Mr. Harper turned round anxiously. “Agatha, what must--what can I do? No,” he muttered to himself, “I can do nothing.” He walked to the window, and stood looking out mutely on the little garden--tiny, but so pretty, with its green verandah, its semicircle of arbutus trees serving as a frame to the hilly landscape beyond, its one wavy acacia, woodbine-clasped, at the foot of which a robin-redbreast was hopping and singing over the few fallen leaves. While they all thus stood, there came a light foot and a flutter of draperies to the door. “My patience! what are you all doing here? So, Agatha--Anne! How d'ye do, my worthy brother? Why didn't you all come to our house?” “We were coming directly,” Agatha said. “But how did you find out we were at Kingcombe?” “You little London-lady! As if anybody, especially the much-beloved Anne Valery (saving her presence) and the much-wondered-at Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper, could drive through Kingcombe without the fact being speedily circulated throughout the whole town? Why, my dear, if you must know, the grocer told Mrs. Edwards' nursemaid, and Mrs. Edwards' nursemaid told it to Mrs. Jones at the Library, and Mrs. Jones told Miss Trenchard, who was coming to call on me; so I asked Duke to give the children their dinner, and off I started, tracking you as cleverly as one of Nathanael's Red Indians. And here I am.” She stopped, breathless, her flounces, veil, and shawl flying abroad in all directions. But she looked so hearty, natural, and good-humoured, that her entrance was quite a relief to Agatha--more especially as, for a great wonder, she asked no questions. “So, I hear you have been showing Honeywood to Mrs. Harper. Pretty place, isn't it! A pity it's not on your property, Anne, or you would not let it go to ruin unlet. And here is poor Mr. Wilson's old house, with all the furniture just as it was. How melancholy!” She said “How melancholy!” just in the tone that she would have said “How entertaining!” From circumstances, or from natural peculiarity--that light easy temper which dances like a feather over the troubled waters of life--she had evidently never learnt the meaning of the word sorrow.