"You are a darling!" But for all that Madame Lepelletier longed to shake her. Her father received her with open arms and rapturous caresses. She gave a little sob. "You won't ask me again!" she cried. "I don't want anybody but just you, now that Auntie Dora is away." "And I want you to love me best of all. Heaven knows, my darling, how dear you are!" He spoke the truth. In this brief while he had grown to love her devotedly. Madame Lepelletier was very sweet, but she did not consider it wise to rouse the child's opposition, since no one else could beguile favors from her. Before they reached New York she had allowed herself to be persuaded to go at once to Grandon Park, and Floyd telegraphed, a little ambiguously, used as he was to brief announcements. Madame Lepelletier had made a half-resolve, piqued by his friendly indifference, that he should own her charm. She would establish a footing in the family. And now, in the quiet of the guest-chamber, where everything is more luxurious than she has imagined, she resolves that she will win Floyd Grandon back. She will make the mother and sisters adore her. She has not been schooled in a French world for nothing, and yet it was not a very satisfactory world. She will have more real happiness here; and she sighs softly as she composes herself to sleep. Floyd Grandon kisses his darling for the last time, then shutting his door, sits down by the window and lights a cigar. He does not want to sleep. Never in his life has he felt so like a prince. He has this lovely house, and his child to watch and train, and, mayhap, some little fame to win. He makes no moan for the dead young mother in her grave, for he understands her too truly to desire her back, with all her weakness and frivolity. He cannot invest her with attributes that she never possessed, but he can remember her in the child, who shall be true and noble and high of soul. They two, always. Laura has fallen asleep over visions of bridal satin and lace that are sure now to come true, but Gertrude tosses restlessly and sighs for her lost youth. Twenty-nine seems fearfully old to-night, for the next will be thirty. She does not care for marriage now; but she has an impending dread of something,--it may be a contrast with that beautiful, blooming woman. "For I know she will _try_ to get Floyd," she says, with a bitter sigh. This fear haunts the mother's pillow as well. Many aims and hopes of her life have failed. She loves her younger son with a tender fervor, but she does not desire to have the elder wrested out of her hands, and become a guest in the home where she has reigned mistress. Truly they are not all beds of roses. CHAPTER III. "Let the world roll blindly on, Give me shadow, give me sun, And a perfumed day as this is."