"Well, none of _my_ dear ones are going to pass away there," said Phyllis irreverently, "unless Mrs. Clancy wants to. I'm not even taking any servants but Wallis. The country-house doesn't need any more than a cook, a chambermaid, and outdoor man. Mrs. Clancy is getting them. I told her I didn't care what age or color she chose, but they had to be cheerful. She will stay in the city and keep the others straight, in something she calls board-wages. I'm starting absolutely fresh." They were back at Mrs. De Guenther's house by the time Phyllis was done telling her plans, Phyllis sitting in the identical pluffy chair where she had made her decision to marry Allan. Mrs. De Guenther sprang from her own chair, and came over and impulsively kissed her. "God bless you, dear!" she said. "I believe it was Heaven that inspired Albert and myself to choose you to carry on poor Angela's work." Phyllis flushed indignantly. "I'm undoing a little of it, I hope," she said passionately. "If I can only make that poor boy forget some of those dreadful years she spent crying over him, I shan't have lived in vain!" Mrs. De Guenther looked at Phyllis earnestly--and, most unexpectedly, burst into a little tinkling laugh. "My dear," she said mischievously, "what about all the fine things you were going to do for yourself to make up for being tied to poor Allan? You should really stop being unselfish, and enjoy yourself a little." Phyllis felt herself flushing crimson. Elderly people did seem to be so sentimental! "I've bought myself lots of things," she defended herself. "Most of this is really for me. And--I can't help being good to him. It's only common humanity. I was never so sorry for anybody in my life--you'd be, too, if it were Mr. De Guenther!" She thought her explanation was complete. But she must have said something that she did not realize, for Mrs. De Guenther only laughed her little tinkling laugh again, and--as is the fashion of elderly people--kissed her. "I would, indeed, my dear," said she. X Allan Harrington lay in his old attitude on his couch in the darkened day-room, his tired, clear-cut face a little thrown back, eyes half-closed. He was not thinking of anything or any one especially; merely wrapped in a web of the dragging, empty, gray half-thoughts of weariness in general that had hung about him so many years. Wallis was not there. Wallis had been with him much less lately, and he had scarcely seen Phyllis for a fortnight; or, for the matter of that, the dog, or any one at all. Something was going on, he supposed, but he scarcely troubled himself to wonder what. The girl was doubtless making herself boudoirs or something of the sort in a new part of the house. He closed his eyes entirely, there in the dusky room, and let the web of dreary, gray, formless thought wrap him again. Phyllis's gay, sweetly carrying voice rang from outside the door: