There was nothing about Margery indicative of humiliation or shame. On the contrary, it seemed to him that there was in her manner a certain reassurance and dignity he had never noticed before, and he studied her curiously and wondered if after all he was mistaken and the insinuations of the clerk in Mentone false. How inexpressibly sweet and lovely Margery was, with just enough of the invalid about her to make her interesting and Mr. Beresford found it difficult to decide which of the two girls pleased and fascinated him more, Queenie or Margery. Both were very lovely, and he was so much interested and attracted that it was very late when he at last said good-night to the two young ladies, telling Reinette he was going to write the next day to Phil, who must be in India by this time. For two weeks longer Margery remained at Hetherton Place; but though everything was done for her comfort that love could devise, she did not seem happy, neither did her strength come back to her, as Queenie had hoped it would. It was very rarely that she ever laughed, even at Queenie’s liveliest sallies, and there was upon her white face a look of inexpressible sadness, as if there were a heavy pain in her heart, of which she could not speak. To Reinette she was all sweetness and love, and her eyes would follow the gay young girl as she flitted about the house, with an expression in them which it was hard to fathom or explain, it was so full of tenderness, and pity, too, if it were possible to connect that word with a creature as bright and merry-hearted as Queenie Hetherton was then. Toward Mrs. La Rue, who came occasionally to see her, her manner was constrained, though always kind and considerate. But something had come between the mother and her daughter—something which even Queenie noticed and commented on to Margery, with her usual frankness. “Your mother acts as if she were afraid of you,” she said to Margery one day, after Mrs. La Rue had been and gone. “She actually seemed to start every time you spoke to her, and she watched you as I have seen some naughty child watch its mother to see if it was forgiven and taken again into favor. I hope, Margery, you are not too hard upon her because of that concealment from me. _I_ have forgiven it, and nearly forgotten it, and surely her own daughter ought to be more lenient than a stranger.” Reinette was pleading for Mrs. La Rue, and as she went on, Margery burst into a passionate fit of weeping. “Thank you, Queenie,” she said, when she could speak—“thank you so much. I must have been hard toward mother if even you noticed it; but it shall be so no longer. Poor mother! I think she is not altogether right in her mind.” The next time Mrs. La Rue came to Hetherton Place she had no cause to complain of her reception, for Margery’s manner toward her was that of a dutiful and affectionate child, and when Mrs. La Rue asked: “Are you never coming home to me again, Margery?” she answered her: