An hour later, Missy, with her cheeks flushed from the talking and the warm rooms, went out of the summer parlor and across the lawn to a pair of young people who had been silly enough to stay there till there was danger of their being made ill by the cold. She had promised an anxious mamma by the fire to see that her daughter had a shawl or came in, and had just delivered the message and the shawl and turned away from the obdurate little idiot, who would not give up her flirtation even to escape pneumonia, when she saw that Mr. Andrews had followed her. "It is a very unlucky day for my garden party," she said, as he joined her. "The sky and the water like ink, and a wind that actually howls." "I wanted to speak to you a moment," he said, as if he had not noticed what she was saying. "Will you take cold here for a moment?" "No," she answered, feeling her cheeks burn. "This has been an unlucky summer in some ways, Miss Rothermel, but now it's over; and before we part, I want to say a few words to you." "Certainly," said Missy, distantly. "I hope you're not going away soon?" "I've taken passage for the 6th, that is a week from to-day, and I don't know when we shall return--very possibly not for several years." There was a pause, while Missy got her voice steady and staggered up from under the blow. "I've been unlucky this summer, as I said, and seem to have managed to give you offense by everything I did." Now, no woman likes to be told she's not sweet-tempered, even if she knows she is a spitfire, and this nettled Missy sharply, and steadied her voice considerably. "I am sorry," she said, "that you think me so unamiable, but I don't exactly know why you should think it well to tell me of it." "I haven't told you that you were unamiable; I have told you that I hadn't been able to do the thing that pleased you, though Heaven knows I've tried hard enough." "It's a pity that I'm such a dragon. Poor little Jay, even, is afraid of me by this time, isn't he?" "I don't know about Jay. I'm rather stupid about things, I'm afraid. Women perplex me very much." Missy drew the scarf that she had picked up in the hall as she came out, about her shoulders, and beat her foot upon the gravel as if she were cold and a trifle tired of Mr. Andrews' sources of perplexity. "What I wanted to say," he went on, "is, that I thank you always for what you've been to the children." "Ah, please," she cried, with a gesture of impatience.