"She said 'twas an old song, and, oh, wasn't it lovely? Her singin' that made me think of havin' Devil learn, you know. I tie a teenty bit of paper on his leg, and then--oh, I'll tell you all about it some time. Prue's helpin' me. She says it may come handy when one of us is shut up in a dungeon, you know. Don't you think so?" Lawrence nodded. His mind was hardly following the boy's words now. There was creeping upon him a dull sense of dissatisfaction, he knew not why. Leander prattled on, the words sounding confusedly in the still room. At last Lawrence's ears caught the sentence, "For Caro wouldn't let Lord Maxwell have the _Vireo_ and take us all down to the Point of Rocks. She was as silly as she could be, but she wouldn't give in. When I asked her afterwards, she said the _Vireo_ shouldn't go out till you were able to sail her." Lawrence inwardly called himself childish because of the warm glow that came to his heart as he heard. "Bless her! bless her!" he said to himself. "She cares for me." In two days more the young man was down-stairs. He still moved rather stiffly, but his face was radiant as he sat on the piazza with Carolyn. "We're going to have a long morning all by ourselves," said the girl, but she had scarcely spoken when two people came strolling along in the shrubbery at the left of the lawn. Lawrence did not suppress an exclamation of impatience when Prudence came in sight, followed by a tall man whom Lawrence had not seen. Prudence hastened forward. She came to Lawrence and held out her hand, looking up at him with a warm glance of delight. "Welcome, Mr. Lawrence, welcome!" she said, in a low voice. "Thank you," he responded, somewhat coldly. "And so you're really better?" "Oh, I'm all right now. I suppose you have all been desolated by my absence." Lawrence knew that these last words were in very poor taste, but an inexplicable bitterness in his heart made him say them. He tried immediately to laugh them off. "Oh, yes," returned Prudence, "we have refrained from smiling, all of us, save Leander, who is a heartless wretch." Then she introduced the two men to each other, and they bowed stiffly, and Lord Maxwell said it must be no end of a bore to be shut up in a room; he had tried it and he knew. Having said thus much, his lordship turned markedly to Prue. "I say, let's see what's the matter with your wheel. You've forgotten all about it, you know." As the two walked away, Lawrence avoided looking after them. He turned towards Carolyn, and saw that she had her eyes fixed upon Prue's retreating figure. There was a look of anxiety on her face. "Oh, I do wish she wouldn't do so!" he exclaimed. "Do what?" "Why, go on so with Lord Maxwell. Of course everybody notices it." "And his wife in sulphur springs," laughed Lawrence. The girl glanced at him quickly, and then laughed.