After accepting the chair beside his sister which she offered to him, he leaned back with every evidence of comfort, and his first words adroitly changed her aggression to defense. “You take trifles far too seriously, Marion,” he observed. She stared, and he smilingly offered her the rubber disk. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “Oh, yes, you do.” Mrs. Nixon compressed her lips. “You misunderstand entirely,” she said at last. “I took a very great fancy to that young girl.” “It does you credit, Marion.” “And you’ve spoiled everything,” she retorted. “I was going to arrange to have her come to us in Boston.” “In what capacity?” “Waitress, of course. And now you’ve made it impossible.” “It always would have been impossible. I couldn’t think of allowing Gorham Vincent’s daughter to wait on our table. I highly approve of having her come to us, however,—the charming creature.” “What are you thinking of?” “Why, it seems she has no one belonging to her.” “Henry!” said Mrs. Nixon sonorously, “the home circle is sacred.” She was greatly startled; and she looked at the insouciant face and figure of her brother with repressed exasperation. “It is a small circle in our case, certainly.” “Now that Robert is at home, we shall be three,” returned the lady. It was her house, and her home circle; and even though her wealthy bachelor brother was its most valuable asset, she did not intend to cede her rights. There was a space of silence; then she spoke accusingly again. “I have been thinking the last week, Henry, that perhaps in bringing your stenographer on this trip, and making her of use to me also, you have had it in mind to suggest, on our return, that _she_ remain with us.” Mr. Derwent’s eyes were fixed on the landscape. He did not respond at once, and Mrs. Nixon, looking at him sharply, was in doubt whether to interpret his silence as a guilty one. “Marion,” he said at last, “do you often think of Alan?” “Why—” Mrs. Nixon paused in her surprise at this irrelevancy,—“why, yes, I do.” It was with an effort that her thought unclasped itself from the present, to revert to the unfortunate one of the family: the brother whose every effort to succeed in life had seemed to be thwarted; whose children had died, and whose own life had suddenly and unexpectedly closed before he had arrived at middle age. Mr. Derwent’s lips compressed under his white mustache, and his nostrils dilated. Mrs. Nixon observed the change in his face with some dismay. She could not remember when she had last heard him refer to their sorrow. For the first time she realized that this was perhaps because it had gone too deep.