Mystery.' He puts things so well—he always has such nice ideas.” And Felix, getting up, would walk a little and sit down again too suddenly. Then, as if entreating him to look over her want of 'cleverness,' she would put out a hand that, for all its whiteness, had never been idle and smooth his forehead. It had sometimes touched him horribly to see with what despair she made attempts to follow him in his correlating efforts, and with what relief she heard him cease enough to let her say: “Yes, dear; only, I must show you this new kind of expanding cork. It's simply splendid. It bottles up everything!” And after staring at her just a moment he would acquit her of irony. Very often after these occasions he had thought, and sometimes said: “Mother, you're the best Conservative I ever met.” She would glance at him then, with a special loving doubtfulness, at a loss as to whether or no he had designed to compliment her. When he had given her half an hour to rest he made his way to the blue corridor, where a certain room was always kept for her, who never occupied it long enough at a time to get tired of it. She was lying on a sofa in a loose gray cashmere gown. The windows were open, and the light breeze just moved in the folds of the chintz curtains and stirred perfume from a bowl of pinks—her favorite flowers. There was no bed in this bedroom, which in all respects differed from any other in Clara's house, as though the spirit of another age and temper had marched in and dispossessed the owner. Felix had a sensation that one was by no means all body here. On the contrary. There was not a trace of the body anywhere; as if some one had decided that the body was not quite nice. No bed, no wash-stand, no chest of drawers, no wardrobe, no mirror, not even a jar of Clara's special pot-pourri. And Felix said: “This can't be your bedroom, Mother?” Frances Freeland answered, with a touch of deprecating quizzicality: “Oh yes, darling. I must show you my arrangements.” And she rose. “This,” she said, “you see, goes under there, and that under here; and that again goes under this. Then they all go under that, and then I pull this. It's lovely.” “But why?” said Felix. “Oh! but don't you see? It's so nice; nobody can tell. And it doesn't give any trouble.” “And when you go to bed?” “Oh! I just pop my clothes into this and open that. And there I am. It's simply splendid.” “I see,” said Felix. “Do you think I might sit down, or shall I go through?” Frances Freeland loved him with her eyes, and said: “Naughty boy!” And Felix sat down on what appeared to be a window-seat. “Well,” he said, with slight uneasiness, for she was hovering, “I think you're wonderful.” Frances Freeland put away an impeachment that she evidently felt to be too soft. “Oh! but it's all so simple, darling.” And Felix saw that she had something in her hand, and mind. “This is my little electric brush. It'll do wonders with your hair. While you sit there, I'll just try it.”