"The conditions of your health are unchanged, you mean," answered Elizabeth, with that quiet sympathy that always rested people. "This is the mistake that folk make: they do not distinguish between an unhealthy mind and a diseased soul: the one is due to physical disorganization, the other to moral causes. In your case, dear Mrs. Cheyne, one may safely lay the blame on the first cause." "Oh, do you think so?" she asked, earnestly. "I dare not cheat my conscience in that way: it is my bad temper, my undisciplined nature, that ought to bear the blame." "No; believe me," answered Elizabeth, for they had grown great friends of late, "I have watched you narrowly, and I know how you try to conquer this irritability; there is no black spot of anger in your heart, whatever words come to your lips. You are like a fretful child sometimes, I grant you that, who is ailing and unconscious of its ailment. When you would be calm, you are strangely disturbed; you speak sharply, hoping to relieve something that oppresses you." "Oh, yes!" sighed Magdalene; "and yet Herbert never speaks crossly to me." "He never will, for he knows what you suffer. Well, dear friend, what of this? This is a cross that you must carry perhaps all your life. You are not the only one who has to bear the torment of disordered nerves: it must be borne with resignation, as we bear other troubles. Once you felt you could not love God; you ceased to pray to Him; now you love Him a little. Go on loving; thank him for your husband's patience, and pray that you may have patience with yourself. One is weary of always living with one's self, I know that well," finished Elizabeth, with a charming smile. Mr. Drummond would have verified Miss Middleton's opinion that Magdalene was not so unchanged as she believed herself to be. At his first interview with her after Herbert Cheyne's return, he could almost have sworn that she was a different woman. Phillis, who spent all her spare time at the White House,--for they both made much of Herbert's "good angel," as he still called her jestingly,--was sitting alone with Mrs. Cheyne when Archie was announced. His old enemy greeted him with a frank smile. "This is kind of you, Mr. Drummond," she said, quite warmly. "How I wish my husband were not out, that I could introduce him to you! I have told him how good you have tried to be to me, but that I was ungrateful and repulsed you." Archie was shaking hands with Phillis, who seemed a little disturbed at his entrance. He turned around and regarded the beautiful woman with astonishment. Was this really Mrs. Cheyne? Where was the hard, proud droop of the lip, the glance of mingled coldness and _hauteur_, the polished sarcasm of voice and manner? Her face looked clear and open as a child's; her eyes were brilliant with happiness. Magdalene was in one of her brightest moods when she was most truly herself.