of the day, and talk to Jock with great animation about his new tutor, and all that was going to happen. “She didn’t mind after all,” Mrs. Ford said; “how should she, a man old enough to be her father!” And thus everybody was pleased. In the afternoon Katie Russell came in, all tearful and penitent, to beg Lucy’s pardon, and declare that “it was all me.” The pardon was accorded with great willingness and satisfaction, and Katie stayed and chattered, and made a lasting peace. She offended Lucy’s taste no longer; or else Lucy awoke to the fact that her friend was never entirely to her taste, and that toleration is the most essential of all qualities to friendship. Katie remained to tea. She told Jock a quite new story, which he had never heard before, and could not parallel out of his books; and she beguiled Lucy back into the old world of careless youth. Lucy’s youth had never been so thoughtless or so merry as that of many of her comrades. Even Katie, though she had known so many of the drawbacks of life, had, on the other hand, got a great deal more pleasure out of it than the heiress had ever known. Sometimes the pleasures and the pains go together, and it is a question whether those are best off who hold the middle way between, and have not much of either. Katie was a more lively companion than Lucy, with her serious upbringing, her sense of responsibility, and those cares which had been put so prematurely upon her young head, could ever have been. The pink drawing-room for the first time became mirthful, and light voices and laughter disturbed the quiet. “Just listen,” Mrs. Ford said: “Sir Thomas, for all such a great man as you think him, has not made much impression there.” Her husband, who had a very high opinion of the influence of Sir Thomas, uttered a “humph” of protestation from where he sat in his easy-chair by the fire-place. The grate full of shavings was not so pleasant as the grate with a good fire in it was in winter; but it was Ford’s place at all seasons. He said nothing but humph! having nothing to add to bolster up his opinion. But it would have been as surprising to him as to his wife had they known that it was he who was in the right, and that even Lucy’s laugh, her easier mind, her more cheerful face, owed something to the cheerful presence of Sir Tom, even though he had gone away. At tea they were joined by another and unexpected visitor, at the sight of whom Mrs. Ford threw up her hands. “Philip,” she cried, “I thought you were abroad. How glad I am to see you! Dear, dear, how little one knows! I was thinking this very afternoon, when I saw a picture of the snowy mountains--there, now, Philip’s about there.”