"I was a bit harsh with you, dearie, was I not?" returned Miss Mewlstone, apologetically: "but there! you were such a child that I thought you had been deceived. But I ought to have known better, craving your pardon, my dear. Now we will just go back to Magdalene; and you must help my stupid old head, for I am fairly crazy at the thought of telling her. Go back into the parlor and lie down, Herbert, for you are terribly exhausted. You must have patience, my man, a wee bit longer, for we must be cautious,--cautious, you see." "Yes, I must have patience," he responded, rather bitterly. But he went back into the room and watched them until they disappeared into the gates of his own rightful paradise. Miss Mewlstone was leaning on Phillis's arm. Her gait was still rather feeble, but the girl was talking energetically to her. "What a spirit she has! just like Magdalene at her age," he thought, "only Magdalene never possessed her even temper. My poor girl! From what Barby says, she has grown hard and bitter with trouble. But it shall be my aim in life to comfort her for all she has been through!" And then, as he thought of his dead children, and of the empty nursery, he groaned, and threw himself face downward upon the couch. But a few minutes afterwards he had started up again, unable to rest, and began to pace the room; and then, as though the narrow space confined him, he continued his restless walk into the garden, and then into the shrubberies of the White House. "My dear, I am not as young as I was. I feel as if all this were too much for me," sighed Miss Mewlstone, as she pressed her companion's arm. "One needs so much vitality to bear such scenes. I am terrified for Magdalene, she has so little self-control! and to have him given back to her from the dead! I thank God! but I am afraid, for all that." And a few more quiet tears stole over her cheeks. "Thinking of it only makes it worse," returned Phillis, feverishly. She, too, dreaded the ordeal before them; but she was young, and not easily daunted. All the way through the shrubbery she talked on breathlessly, trying to rally her own courage. It was she who entered the drawing-room first, for poor Miss Mewlstone had to efface the signs of her agitation. Mrs. Cheyne looked up, surprised to see her alone. "Jeffreys told me you and Miss Mewlstone had gone out together on a little business. What have you done with poor old Barby?" And, as Phillis answered as composedly and demurely as she could, Mrs. Cheyne arched her eyebrows in her old satirical way: "She is in her room, is she? Never mind answering, if you prefer your own counsel. Your little mysteries are no business of mine. I should have thought the world would have come to an end, though, before Barby had thrown down the third volume of a novel for anything short of a fire. But you and she know best." And, as Phillis flushed and looked confused under her scrutiny, she gave a short laugh and turned away.