"Not for a million of money!" he whispered. Then he said aloud: "If I ever stand for Parliament, Mrs. Loring, I should like you to help me with my constituency!" The unruffled temper and sweet reasonableness of Robinette's answers to questions by no means always devoid of malice, had struck the young man very much, as he listened. "She is good!" he thought to himself. "Good and sweet and generous. Her loveliness is not only in her face; it is in her heart." And some favorite lines began to run in his head that night, with new conviction:-- He that loves a rosy cheek, Or a coral lip admires, Or from star-like eyes doth seek Fuel to maintain his fires,-- As old Time makes these decay, So his flames will waste away. But a smooth and steadfast mind, Gentle thoughts and calm desires, Hearts with equal love combined-- but here Lavendar broke off with a laugh. "It's not come to that yet!" he thought. "I wonder if it ever will?" X A NEW KINSMAN Young Mrs. Loring was making her way slowly at Stoke Revel Manor, and Mrs. de Tracy, though never affectionate, treated her with a little less indifference as the days went on. "The Admiral's niece is a lady," she admitted to herself privately; "not perhaps the highest type of English lady; that, considering her mixed ancestry and American education, would be too much to expect; but in the broad, general meaning of the word, unmistakably a lady!" Mrs. Benson, though not melting outwardly as yet, held more lenient views still with regard to the American guest. Bates, the butler, was elderly, and severely Church of England; his knowledge of widows was confined to the type ably represented by his mistress and he regarded young Mrs. Loring as inclined to be "flighty." The footman, who was entirely under the butler's thumb in mundane matters, had fallen into the habit of sharing his opinions, and while agreeing in the general feeling of flightiness, declared boldly that the lady in question gave a certain "style" to the dinner-table that it had lacked before her advent. For a helpless victim, however, a slave bound in fetters of steel, one would have to know Cummins, the under housemaid, who lighted Mrs. Loring's fire night and morning. She was young, shy, country bred, and new to service. When Mrs. Benson sent her to the guest's room at eight o'clock on the morning after her arrival she stopped outside the door in a panic of fear. "Come in!" called a cheerful voice. "Come in!"