She was not exactly pretty, but slender and fragile-looking, and she generally contrived to do as much as she liked and no more. Her fierce husband adored and petted her, and she was very fond of him and of the children, whom she expected him to keep in order or amuse as the case might be. Wherever she was she liked to form the centre, and now she managed to draw them all round her, except Bice. Bice strolled away alone towards the other end of the garden, here and there picking a rose, or one of the half-wild flowers which grew without care just as they had been stuck in. The girl was in a strange and dissatisfied mood that day; it seemed as if different strings were vibrating together, making odd discords and harmonies. Some had been set in motion by things which Ibbetson had said the day before, others had been touched and jarred, she scarcely knew how or why: questions and perplexities seemed to have awakened just at the moment when she had intended them to be silent. From that father from whose memory she shrank she had inherited many characteristics: among them a strong will, and a desire to thrust whatever was painful to her out of sight. "Why should I be obliged to remember now?" her heart cried out angrily, as she turned and looked at the gay little group, already beckoning to her to return to them. "Give is Kitty's own brother, and she is not thinking about him, and Oliver has not come yet, and things are not worse than they were yesterday, when I was not half so unhappy. And to-day I meant to enjoy myself and to forget it all. Why does it come back now?" She was impatient at her own weakness and yet could not master it; tears rushed into her eyes, she turned hastily away, and laid her arms upon a low wall, heedless, for the moment, of anything but her own unhappiness. "You must not desert us in this way," said some one behind. "We are waiting for you before we begin the great business of the day, which is much more formidable than I thought." And then his voice changed, and, became very kind and grave. "Is anything the matter? Has anyone vexed you, that you go away and leave us?" For she had turned and looked him full in the face, careless that the tears were running down her cheeks. A desperate longing seized her to tell him her troubles and to ask his help. The poor child had so few from whom she could seek it, that it seemed to her as if this kind voice might give her aid in the labyrinth where she was losing herself. The longing was of course utterly foolish and unreasonable. Jack was an utter stranger, and the next moment her face burnt at the thought of what her impulse had been. He for his part could not understand the piteous appeal in her eyes, or the change in which it died out. She said quickly-- "Vexed? Oh, no! I was unhappy because I was thinking of my brother Clive." "Is he ill?"