Grover herself wondered how she dared to chatter in this way to him. The change must have been very marked. A month ago she had hardly opened her lips to him during her seven years' service in his house, except for the necessary conventional words she was obliged to speak. To-day, the silence in which he heard her had lacked any audible sign of encouragement. Yet it had encouraged. It had been the silence that eagerly awaits--that longs for more. Cosmo and Damian! Surely the set lips under the heavy moustache were curving into an unwilling smile. How young it was--how freakish! How strangely he relished it! To have a creature like that always about him! If he had only known!... Definitely he had rendered his own happiness impossible. For his mind had begun to reach out, to curl itself about the idea of a new, strange happiness, subtle and flooding--happiness that must spring from this single-minded, loving, exquisite child, whom he had imprisoned in his gloomy fortress. He wandered aimlessly into his study, sat down at his writing table, rested his elbows upon it, his chin on his hands, and stared out upon the garden without moving for nearly an hour. * * * * * Virginia's first visit to Perley Hatch gave her food for much reflection. They motored there upon a fine sultry afternoon, and the chauffeur and his mistress made a "sedan chair" with their locked hands, to carry the invalid from the car across the grass to where a long chair had been spread for her in the shade. Tom and Bill were produced from somewhere in the grounds, with more or less grimy faces and shabby overalls, but very healthy and vivacious manners. They quickly made friends with Mrs. Gaunt, divining a sympathetic spirit from the first. The baby, a damsel of about twelve months, being still largely in her nurse's hands, was cleaner and more amenable, but just as hilarious. The two boys were both frankly ugly, but the girl had taken after her somewhat showy father, and was a handsome child, of whom her mother was justly proud. She danced upon Virgie's lap, stroked her face, and tried earnestly to feed her with the soppy remnants of a biscuit, which was her own idea of the greatest civility possible to offer. Virgie, gifted with an innate understanding of babyhood, was delighted with these amenities. She enjoyed her visit thoroughly, and was startled when a stable clock struck six times. "Six o'clock! Oh, Mrs. Ferris, it can't be!" cried she in consternation. "Oh, I daresay that's a bit fast," replied Joey comfortably. "Anyhow, here comes Percy, so you must just wait five minutes and make friends with him." Mr. Ferris, with every sign of animation and surprise, was advancing across the grass.