the stir of the wind in the far reaches of the valley. The dense white veil that swung from the zenith became suddenly pervaded with vague shivers; then tenuous, gauzy pennants were detached, floating away in great lengths; the sun struck through from a dazzling focus in a broad, rayonnant, fibrous emblazonment of valley and range, and as she rose and went to the window to note the weather signs she could not resist the lure of escape. She had struggled all day with an eager desire to be out of the house, removed from the constantly recurring chances of meeting Bayne, quit of the sight of him. She instantly caught up her broad gray hat with its flaunting red and gray ostrich plumes and called out to Mrs. Briscoe a suggestion that they should repair to the vacant hotel for a tramp on its piazzas, for it was the habit of the two ladies in rainy or misty weather to utilize these long, sheltered stretches for exercise, and many an hour they walked, on dreary days, in these deserted precincts. "I'll overtake you," was Mrs. Briscoe's rejoinder, and until then Lillian had not noticed the employ of her hostess. The gardener was engaged in the removal of the more delicate ornamental growths about the porte-cochere and parterre to the shelter of the flower-pit, for bright chill weather and killing frosts would ensue on the dispersal of the mists. Mrs. Briscoe herself was intent on withdrawing certain hardier potted plants merely from the verge of the veranda to a wire-stand well under the roof. Briscoe was at the gun-rack in the hall, restoring to its place the favorite rifle he had intended to use to-day. He could not refrain from testing its perfect mechanism, and at the first sharp crack of the hammer, liberated by a tentative pull on the trigger, little Archie sprang up from his play on the hearth-rug, where he was harnessing a toy horse to Mrs. Briscoe's work-basket by long shreds of her zephyr, and ran clamoring for permission to hold the gun. Mrs. Briscoe saw him through the open door and instantly protested: "Come away, Archie!" Then to her husband, "You men are always killing somebody with an unloaded gun. Come away, Archie!" "Nonsense, Gladys!" Briscoe remonstrated. "Let the child see the rifle. There is not a shell in the whole rack."