It had been arranged that Aunt Lettice and 'Bitha were to remain with the Hortons for a time, while Joseph Devereux was to accept the invitation of his friend, Colonel Lee, to pass a few days at the latter's house, not far away. This would make the bride and groom the only ones who would return with Leet to the farm, as Dorothy was going to the home of a girl friend, feeling that it would be a relief to be among new faces and in a strange house. "Dorothy, are you going to let me be a good sister to you,--one of the sort you will come to with all your joys and troubles?" The two girls were standing close to each other in one of the upper rooms, where Mary was donning a dark gray slip pelisse and hood, with warm fur linings peeping about the edges, while Mistress Horton was bustling about out of earshot, getting some last stray articles bundled for their conveyance to the sleigh waiting below. The earnest blue eyes were bent searchingly upon Dorothy's face, as if the speaker had more than a passing notion of the impulses stirring the heart lying beneath the laces of the dainty pink gown. But Dorothy laughed, albeit a little constrainedly, and replied, "I thought you knew all about that long ago, Mary." "Do you know, Dot,"--and Mary's white brows contracted into a puzzled frown--"somehow you are changed. What is it, dear?" "Your imaginings, I should say," was the careless reply. "My hair is not turning gray, is it?" And she touched her dark curls. "Well, never mind now," said Mary, diplomatically, and not caring to press the matter, "but you will tell me when we are together again, won't you, Dot?" Dorothy only smiled, and said nothing. Jack had spoken to Mary more than once of some change that had come over his sister. But his words were not needed, as she herself, not having seen much of the girl these last few months, would have observed it had he not spoken. Dorothy was as impulsive and affectionate as of old, but to Mary's keen eyes there now seemed a new-born womanliness about her. She was sensible of the absence of that childish frankness and ingenuousness which had been so much a part of the girl's nature. She was now more like a woman, and one whose mind held a secret she herself tried to evade, as well as have others blind to its existence. It was as if a new self had been born, dominating the old self, and sending her thoughts far from where her body might be. "She must be in love with some one, and 't is sure to be Hugh Knollys," said Mary to herself, with a glow of happiness, as the two went downstairs, Mistress Horton and a servant following them, both laden with packages to be stowed away in the Devereux equipage, whereon Leet sat rigidly upright, the darkness hiding his black face and its unusual grin.