Right here, let me confide to the reader Christine's great failing--the weak point in this strong nature. She had a queer habit of keeping up a sort of running comment on any conversation that took place in her presence--any occurrence that came under her observation; comment in the shape of bits of poetry or song, that she sang softly to herself. But she _could_ not sing--and that was the great failing. Think of a music-teacher who could not, if life depended on it, sing a dozen notes in the same key, but would drop lower and lower, "till her voice fell clear into the cellar"--according to the girl's own statement. Mr. Muldweber seemed loath to part with his prospective tenants, but was assured that the close of the week would find them at Lone Linden. When they reached the depot, the train that was to take Mrs. Wardor and Clara back to the city was ready, and Christine had only just time to apostrophize Clara's eyes-- "Lebt wohl ihr Augen, ihr schönen blauen," before it started. On reaching home, Miss Barbara met them at the threshold, with flaming cheeks and sparkling eyes. "Such a romp as I have had with Snowball," she explained; and the Indian girl laughed like an imp of the devil. Mrs. Wardor chided the young lady for romping, but Clara drew back from the girl with an uncomfortable feeling. Clara's cheeks boasted but a delicate pink tinge at best, and to-night, in the glare of the gas, after the day's fatigue, she looked almost haggard beside the robust, health-glowing girl. "How old are you, Lady Clare?" she asked in the course of the evening. "Twenty-two. Why?" "Oh, nothing; only when I get to be as old as you are I shall wear black constantly, just as you do, particularly if I have lost all my color, too." "A wise resolution. I never had your color, though. Neither my face nor my hair was ever red--nor my mother's, before me. Perhaps she did not stand over the hot fire as much as your mother did." "Yes--I know they say mother 'lived out' as cook when she first came to California; but then--_she_ didn't have to marry to get a home." It was all out now; though the girl sent the shaft almost at random, it had struck the sore spot. Clara had married for a home. Her mother had expended her meagre fortune on Clara's education, never doubting that the girl's loveliness would attract a goodly number of suitors, from whom the most suitable, that is, the wealthiest, could be chosen. Whether Clara was less worldly or more romantic--at any rate she lost her heart to a young man in society, who was considered an ornament of that society--though it would have puzzled a common mortal to discover why. His upper lip boasted a full, silken moustache, and he could turn over the music sheets, standing beside the young lady performing on the piano, with unequalled grace; he sang a languid tenor, and could fasten his eyes on a lady with a melting, melancholy look, as if sighing in his heart, "could I but die for thee."