Miss Theodora glanced ahead. Nearsighted though she was, she had no trouble in recognizing her nephew's broad shoulders and swinging gait. But the young man was not alone. He was walking rather slowly, and bending toward a girl in a close-fitting tailor-made suit. It was the end of October, too early for furs, yet the girl was anticipating the winter fashions. One end of a long fuzzy boa flaunted itself over her shoulder, stirred, like the heavy ostrich plumes in her hat, by the afternoon breeze. "It isn't Kate, is it?" said Miss Theodora, dubiously, as the carriage drew near the pair. "No, indeed, not Kate," quickly answered Mrs. Digby. "I wonder who it can be," continued Miss Theodora, for she could not help observing Ernest's tender air toward the girl. "Oh, I'm sure I can't say, Theodora. It's certainly no one I know; but Kate--or perhaps it was Ralph--has been saying something about a flirtation of Ernest's with some girl he met somewhere last year." Then seeing that Miss Theodora looked downcast: "Oh, it isn't likely it's anything serious, Theodora; it's only what you must expect at his age, and of course his interests are all so different now from what you had expected, that it isn't surprising to find him flirting or falling in love with girls whom you and I know nothing about." By this time the carriage had passed the two young people, and Ernest was so absorbed in his companion that he did not even see it rolling by. [Illustration] XIX. Poor Miss Theodora! One walk on a public thoroughfare with a girl heretofore unknown to one's relatives need not imply the surrender of a young man's affections; but Ernest, so his aunt thought, was not like other young men. He would be sincere in a matter of this kind. If his interest in any girl had been so marked as to be a subject of comment for Ralph and Kate, it must be known to many other people. Yet why had Kate not spoken to her, as well as to her mother; or why had not Ernest himself suggested the direction in which his fancy was wandering? Many questions like these crowded Miss Theodora's mind, for which she had no satisfactory answer. Strangest of all,--and she could hardly account for her own reticence,--she said not a word to Kate nor to Ernest of all this that lay so near her heart. If Ben had been at home, she might have talked freely to him. He could have told whether or not Mrs. Digby's surmises were correct. But Ben had been in the West for a year and a half. If he had been at home, she thought, perhaps this would never have happened. Yet, after all, what was the "this" which so disturbed Miss Theodora's usually calm mind? What were the signs by which she recognized that Ernest had secrets which he did not confide to her?