A few words passed as to the hour at which the carriage was to call for Mrs. Sutton, and Mabel kissed her “Good-by,” the others shaking hands with her, and with three or four of the Tazewell kinsmen who officiated as masters of ceremonies, and Mrs. Aylett made an impatient movement toward the front steps. Directly in her route, leaning against a pillar of the old-fashioned porch, was Frederic Chilton, no longer dreamy and perplexed, but on the alert with eye and ear--not losing one sound of her voice, or trick of feature. She inclined her head slightly and courteously, the notice due a friend of the house she, as guest, was about to leave. He did not bow, nor relax the rigor of his watch. Only, when she was seated in the carriage, he bent respectfully and mutely before Mabel, who followed her hostess, and paying as little attention to the two gentlemen as they did to him walked up to Mrs. Sutton, and said something inaudible to the bystanders. As they drove out of the yard, the Ridgeley quartette saw the pair saunter, side by side, to the extreme end of the portico, apparently to be out of hearing of the rest, but no one remarked aloud upon the renewed intimacy and then confidential attitude. “If it is anything very startling, the old gossip will never keep it to herself,” Mr. Aylett congratulated himself, while his wife's complexion paled gradually to bloodlessness, and Herbert sat back in his corner, sulky and dumb. “And she is coming to us on Friday!” CHAPTER XVIII. -- THUNDER IN THE AIR. THE only malady that put Herbert Dorrance in frequent and unpleasant remembrance of his mortality was a fierce headache, which had of late years supervened upon any imprudence in diet, and upon excessive agitation of mind or physical exertion. His invariable custom, when he awoke at morning with one of these, was to trace it to its supposed source, and after determining that it was nothing more than might have been expected from the circumstance, to commit himself to his wife's nursing for the day. She ought, therefore, to have been surprised when, while admitting that the pain in his head was intense, he yet, on the morrow succeeding Mrs. Tazewell's funeral, persisted in rising and dressing for breakfast. “It must have been the roast duck at dinner yesterday,” he calmly and languidly explained the attack. “It was fat, and the stuffing reeked with butter, sage, and onion. An ostrich could not have digested it. I was tired, too, and should not have eaten heartily of even the plainest food.”