"I've tried to persuade her to go to visit Olivia," continued Mrs. Gardiner. "But she won't. And she doesn't want me to ask Olivia here." "I'll ask Olivia before I speak to her." Mrs. Gardiner went up to her daughter's room--it had been her play-room, then her study, and was now graduated into her sitting-room. She was dreaming over a book--Tennyson's poems. She looked up, eyes full of hope. "He has some good reason, dear," began her mother. "What is it?" demanded Pauline. "I can't tell you any more than I've told you already," replied her mother, trying not to show her feelings in her face. "Why does he treat me--treat you--like two naughty little children?" said Pauline, impatiently tossing the book on the table. "Pauline!" Her mother's voice was sharp in reproof. "How can you place any one before your father!" Pauline was silent--she had dropped the veil over herself. "I--I--where did you place father--when--when--" Her eyes were laughing again. "You know he'd never oppose your happiness, Polly." Mrs. Gardiner was smoothing her daughter's turbulent red-brown hair. "You'll only have to wait under a little more trying circumstances. And if he's right, the truth will come out. And if he's mistaken and John's all you think him, then that will come out." Pauline knew her father was not opposing her through tyranny or pride of opinion or sheer prejudice; but she felt that this was another case of age's lack of sympathy with youth, felt it with all the intensity of infatuated seventeen made doubly determined by opposition and concealment. The next evening he and she were walking together in the garden. He suddenly put his arm round her and drew her close to him and kissed her. "You know I shouldn't if I didn't think it the only course--don't you, Pauline?" he said in a broken voice that went straight to her heart. "Yes, father." Then, after a silence: "But--we--we've been sweethearts since we were children. And--I--father, I MUST stand by him." "Won't you trust me, child? Won't you believe ME rather than him?" Pauline's only answer was a sigh. They loved each the other; he adored her, she reverenced him. But between them, thick and high, rose the barrier of custom and training. Comradeship, confidence were impossible. II. OLIVIA TO THE RESCUE. With the first glance into Olivia's dark gray eyes Pauline ceased to resent her as an intruder. And soon she was feeling that some sort of dawn was assailing her night. Olivia was the older by three years. She seemed--and for her years, was--serious and wise because, as the eldest of a large family, she was lieutenant-general to her mother. Further, she had always had her own way--when it was the right way and did not conflict with justice to her brothers and sisters. And often her parents let her have her own way when it was the wrong way, nor did they spoil the lesson by mitigating disagreeable consequences.