Mrs. Merrick's smile as she put out her hand was obviously decorative. She presented an amusing contrast to the graceful disarray that greeted her. Her thin dry face was flushed above a rigid collar; a sharply tonged fringe and a netted miracle of twists and convolutions seemed appendages of the sailor hat--tilted forward and fastened to her head by a broad elastic band, a spotted veil and two accurate pins. She could but sit erect; her meagre body in its tightly buttoned bodice, was box-like. Her figure was her chief vanity; its "neatness" her aim, and the word with her signified a careful, unrelaxing compression. "Gardening, Felicia?" she asked, glancing down at her niece's earth-dogged shoes. Felicia Merrick's father and her own husband were brothers. "Yes; digging all morning; weeding and watering most of the afternoon." Felicia was thinking that to-day her aunt looked more funnily than ever like a collection of parcels strapped together for postal delivery. She was mentally tying a stamped label to her hat; the circle of the curl between the eyebrows was already a post-mark. "Doesn't Thomas do the digging? It must, I know, be hard to manage with one boy, but surely he could do the digging." "He does, unless I want to." "People can see you from the road--not that any one passes by here often." "Not often," Felicia assented. "I want to know if you can come down to us to-morrow for a week," said Mrs. Merrick, allowing the antagonistic moment to pass, and after a slight hesitation Felicia answered, "Yes, thanks." Mrs. Merrick had often suspected that Felicia's gratitude on these occasions was not up to the mark of the opportunities they gave her, and now, emphasizing the present opportunity, she went on, "You can't fail to enjoy yourself. Lady Angela Bagley is with us. You have heard of her. I met her in London this Spring; we took a great fancy to each other. She is a wonderful woman--really wonderful. Such intellect, such soul, such world polish, and with it such saintliness. Everybody feels that about her; it helps one to know that there are such people in the world," said Mrs. Merrick, sighing as she flicked the pony--"people who have everything the world can give, and who care nothing for it." Felicia wondered from which of her recent guests her aunt had picked up these phrases which came oddly from her anxious materialism. "I have often seen her picture in the ladies' papers," she replied; "it will be nice to see her." She dimly remembered a narrow face, a mist of hair, a long, yearning throat, and she at once decided that she would not like Lady Angela and her soul.