My first meeting with Georgy Lenox on the seashore was not my last. The habits of the family made it easy for us to have our interviews uninterrupted, and probably unperceived, for although we were all early risers we rarely met each other till breakfast-time. Helen went to her father's room at half-past seven, and they read and talked together until my mother called them at nine o'clock. As for my mother, purest of all women as she was, she felt she was not pure enough to meet the new day until she had spent an hour at her Bible and on her knees in prayer. There is a light that comes out of the west sometimes toward evening after a stormy day which seems to be sent straight from the fount of light itself. Such light was always in my mother's eyes when I kissed her good-morning, and I knew it had come to her as she knelt on bended knees. She was tranquil in these days with a Heaven-born tranquillity, but I know now that she had a pang of dread for every throb of love. She spoke to me once of my increasing intimacy with Georgina. "There is nothing you are concealing from me, Floyd?" she said, her brown eyes reading my face. She had come to my bedside after I had gone to rest for the night, impelled by a restlessness to be certain that all was well with her dear ones before she could close her eyes. "I cannot think what you mean, mother," I answered. "I have nothing to conceal." She sighed. "Georgy is a beautiful girl," she said quietly, "but she baits too many lures for men, Floyd. It seems to me she is trying to win you, my dear boy. She is born to make men unhappy. Do not trust her. Oh, why is she here?" "Because Helen has asked her to remain, mother." "Helen pities her and tries to please her. She is one too many in the house, Floyd: she will do some harm to some of us. She is cold and treacherous at heart, and she never sees us happy, contented together but that she hates us every one." I thought my mother fanciful, and told her that she was prejudiced against the girl, who had grown up from infancy under her eyes. "I know her better than you do, mother," I affirmed stubbornly. She smiled a patient, melancholy smile. "If I am prejudiced," said she gently, "it is because of what her misconduct cost my son years ago. Do you think I can ever forget that but for her caprice and self-will you would never have had those years of suffering, Floyd? But we women know each other. It is at times a sad knowledge, and for our prescience the men whom we would serve misjudge us and tell us we hate each other. Georgina is in love this summer. You do not guess what man she has set her wishes upon?" I stirred restlessly on my pillow, but I looked at her with something like anger against her growing in my heart. "Good-night, mother," I returned. "It is none of my business to read any girl's heart through a sister-woman's cold trained eyes. If Miss Lenox is in love, God bless her! I say. I suppose I am not the lucky fellow."