But he was not listening. A door opened down-stairs, and there was a noisy burst of laughter; then it closed, and the hot room was still. "Emily Butterfield will stand my friend," she said, her lips tightening. Then, gently: "We won't get married; Nathaniel. You will just come and visit me until--until the machine is finished." "You will let me come?" he said, with a gasp; "you will let me finish my invention?" He got up, trembling, clutching his bag, and holding out one hand to clasp hers. Lizzie Graham took it, and stood stock-still for one hard moment.... Then she led him down-stairs, out upon the porch, past the loafers gaping and nudging each other. "Goin' to be married, after all, Mis' Graham?" some one said. And Lizzie Graham turned and faced them. "No," she said, calmly. Then they went out into the sunshine together. "AND ANGELS CAME--" BY ANNE O'HAGAN The full effulgence of cloudless midsummer enveloped the place. The lawns, bright and soft, sloped for half a mile to the sweetbrier hedge. Among them wound the drive, now and again crossing the stone bridges of the small, curving lake which gave the estate its affected name--Lakeholm. To the left of the house a coppice of bronze beeches shone with dark lustre; clumps of rhododendrons enlivened the green with splashes of color. Lombardy poplars, with their gibbetlike erectness, bordered the roads and intersected them with mathematical shadows; here and there rose a feathery elm or a maple of wide-branched beauty. To the right, a shallow fall of terraces led to the Italian garden, Mrs. Dinsmore's chief pride, now a glory of matched and patterned color and a dazzle of spray from marble basins. Beyond all the careful, exotic beauty of the place, the wide valley dipped away, alternate meadow and grove, until it met the silvery shiver of willows marking the course of the river. Beyond that again, the hills, solemn in unbroken green, rose to cloud-touched heights. Before the house Brockton's new automobile waited. He himself leaned against a stone pillar of the piazza, facing his hostess, who sat on the edge of a chair in the tense attitude of protest against delay. She had scarcely recovered from her waking crossness yet, and found herself more irritated than amused at the eccentricities of her guest. She was wondering with unusual asperity why a man with such lack-lustre blue eyes dared to wear a tie of such brilliant contrast. He interrupted her musings. "Miss Harned seems mighty stand-offish these days." "Millicent is a little difficult," admitted Millicent's cousin. "What do you suppose it is? She seemed all smooth enough in New York last winter, and even in the spring after--But now--" He paused again without finishing his sentence. "And I had counted on your influence to make her more approachable."