They exchanged the quick glance called for by this statement. Nan nodded. "I shall be leaving very soon," Lois remarked, holding her parasol at arm's length and whirling it idly. "I'm sorry to hear that," Nan replied. She shook the bracelet down upon her round white arm with her accustomed gesture, rested her elbow on the writing-table, and waited. She had just come in from a walk and was clad in a blue wash waist and dark skirt. She was immediately conscious of the perfections of Lois's raiment, noting its points from silk hose and modish pumps to the utmost tip of the feather on the beguiling Paris hat. Nan's imagination was at work upon the situation: Tom Kirkwood's former wife had come to call upon her, and wished to see her alone; and Tom Kirkwood was in love with her, and she would have married him had not this lovely apparition returned to shake her resolution. In the way of people who write she began to view the encounter with unconscious detachment. She was not to remain long in doubt as to the purpose of Lois's visit. "I am going abroad for an indefinite stay. I may return, of course, now and then, but just to pass the time of day. Montgomery will never be my home. Amzi and Phil--" A smile, a slight movement of her head, a lifting of the hand completed the sentence. "They are strong ties," Nan replied, smiling in return. "I want to tell you how deeply grateful I am to you and your sister, for your kindnesses to dear Phil. In these years that I have been gone you and Rose have been"--she hesitated--"like mothers and grown-up sisters to her. The result speaks for itself. Without you those sisters of mine would have made a fool of her." "Oh, Phil couldn't have been spoiled!" exclaimed Nan. "Anybody might be spoiled," Lois insisted. "I'm rather a sad example of the spoiled child myself. I speak, you see, from a weight of experience!" The smile continued in lips and eyes. She was tremendously at ease and her ease was disconcerting. "Phil has kept us delighted and bewildered. She was born with understanding; there's genius in the child!" said Nan, with warmth. "Ah! I knew you realized that! Tom"--she spoke her discarded husband's name unwaveringly, smiling still--"Tom has not quite taken her at full value, though he has been--splendid. Amzi has been a dear angel to her,--but even he has never fully taken in the real Phil. But here, in this house"--she looked about, as though the more fully to place the room in evidence--"you have taken her into your hearts! And she needed the oversight of women--of women like you and Rose. You have been her great stimulus, the wisest of counselors. It seems almost as though I had left her on your doorstep! I am not so dull but that I see it all." Nan colored deeply. Lois's suggestion, so bluntly put, that she had cast her child upon the Bartletts' doorstep aroused uncomfortable memories. After an instant's reflection Nan said:--