"No, Mardy; not lonely with you, but I feel, as near as I can express it--shrunken," said Rob thoughtfully. "I miss the girls, of course, but there is something sweet about this solitude of two, as the French say--like being an only child." Mrs. Grey looked at Rob consideringly, wondering how long she could keep this daughter, if not the one dearest to her motherly heart, certainly the one that she could least well spare. The girl's face was not less brilliant, but it was quieter; the quick tongue had learned the curb, and there was a softer, more womanly look around the sensitive lips which always seemed ready to laugh or to quiver because the upper one was so short. "Wythie is as pretty and sweet as a dove, and Prue is rarely beautiful, but to my eyes Rob is the prettiest of the Grey girls, the one whose face has most power to charm," thought the mother for the unnumbered time as she looked at her. She dared not allude to Bruce. She believed and hoped that sooner or later Bruce's quiet persistence and devotion would win from Rob its reward, but the girl sprang to arms so quickly at a hint of such a possibility that her mother dared not suggest now that Rob, too, might slip away from the little grey house. Instead, she asked: "Aren't you going up to see Wythie a moment before you go down to Charlotte's?" "Yes; Wythie wants advice on the curtains for the Commodore's room," said Rob. "Much as we all like and enjoy Commodore Rutherford, I wonder if Basil and Wythie don't half dread his coming back? Love is selfish; not one bit noble, no matter what the poets say. Wythie flies to hug me when I come in, but I always feel sure that she likes to have me shut the door and leave Basil and her to themselves." "Why, Robin!" remonstrated her mother. "Oh, well; it's all right. We made up our minds to that, I suppose, when we let her go. She loves me just as well as ever, but she isn't my Wythie altogether, as she used to be--she's my exclusively-and-happily married sister. Home is home, Mardy, and every one, who doesn't belong inside it, no matter who she may be, is an outsider. Very likely I shall feel just the same when I have been longer alone with you." "If ever you marry, dear, I shall pray you to come here to live, and let me have a corner in your home, otherwise the little grey house would be left bereft, indeed. Would you mind letting your Mardy Grey stay with you, and should I be an outsider?" asked Mrs. Grey. "You are the very inside and core of my heart, Mardy, as you well know, and those are the only terms upon which I would marry--if I could marry. But I won't marry, Mardy; I never, never will! I don't want to. I want to be Rob Grey, just nobody but Rob Grey of the little grey house to the end." And Rob dropped a kiss on her mother's glossy brown hair as she went out of the room to get her hat for her call on Wythie. "You could not be any one better or more beloved," her mother called after her, and resumed her accounts.