“Thank you.” She turned half round, and cast a woman’s look at the other women. “I shall be ready in half an hour. Will you go away, and comeback then? Not sooner.” “Anything you please, Miss Breen,” he said, laughing in his mystification. “In thirty minutes, or thirty days.” They went back to the steps, and he mounted his buggy. She sat down, and taking some work from her pocket, bent her head over it. At first she was pale, and then she grew red. But these fluctuations of color could not keep her spectators long; one by one they dispersed and descended the cliff; and when she rose to go for her hat the last had vanished, with a longing look at her. It was Miss Gleason. Grace briefly announced her purpose to her mother, who said, “I hope you are not doing anything impulsive”; and she answered, “No, I had quite made up my mind to it last night.” Mr. Libby had not yet returned when she went back to the piazza, and she walked out on the road by which he must arrive. She had not to walk far. He drew in sight before she had gone a quarter of a mile, driving rapidly. “Am I late?” he asked, turning, and pulling up at the roadside, with well-subdued astonishment at encountering her. “Oh, no; not that I know.” She mounted to the seat, and they drove off in a silence which endured for a long time. If Libby had been as vain as he seemed light, he must have found it cruelly unflattering, for it ignored his presence and even his existence. She broke the silence at last with a deep-drawn sigh, as frankly sad as if she had been quite alone, but she returned to consciousness of him in it. “Mr. Libby, you must think it is very strange for me to ask you to drive me to Corbitant without troubling myself to tell you my errand.” “Oh, not at all,” said the young man. “I’m glad to be of use on any terms. It isn’t often that one gets the chance.” “I am going to see Dr. Mulbridge,” she began, and then stopped so long that he perceived she wished him to say something. He said, “Yes?”