Gussy had only said “Oh!” raising her eyelids--but Janet read in that exclamation a suspicion and question. Gussy did not believe that she was sincere, and was curious to know what her motive was. The two had drifted apart strangely, but this suspicion was not native to Miss Harwood’s mind. It came from all those talks about Janet, and Dolff’s subjection to her, which had afforded an opportunity for so much amusement over the piano. Meredith would say, “Ah! I wonder what she means by that?” till Gussy put the question to herself involuntarily as he would have put it, feeling all the same that sick weariness with the subject which translated itself unjustly, but not unnaturally, into an impatience with Janet which sometimes she could hardly restrain. “I should like to come,” said Janet, “but you forget I am in mourning. It is not six months yet----” “That is true,” said the old lady; but she added: “My dear, I like you the better for thinking of it. But, after all, she was not a near relation--not like your mother. For an aunt, six months’ mourning is all that any one thinks of nowadays. And I believe the late poor lady was not even an aunt.” “She was all I ever had, for mother or aunt or guardian.” “Yes, I know--but left you to struggle for yourself, which makes a little difference. And what harm can it do her, poor thing, that you should enjoy yourself a little? You don’t get so many opportunities in this quiet house. When Dolff goes away we shall all relapse into our needlework again.” “And Charley Meredith,” said Julia. Thought is quicker than the most rapid utterance. Julia’s words came instantaneously, almost before her mother had done speaking, but it had flashed into two different minds before she spoke. And Charley Meredith! Gussy added that reflection to the picture of the future with an increasing sickness and impatience of her heart, seeing the same thing over again stretch before her, not without happiness in it, but with a weariness and incompleteness which would grow day by day. And it gleamed into Janet’s thoughts with a certain excitement and suspense, as of a thing of which nobody could prophesy how it would end. The sudden movement in both minds was curiously struck as by a false note by Mrs. Harwood’s calm reply: “And Charley Meredith, perhaps. But that can’t affect Janet, except the wrong way: for I confess, myself, I get sick of these two always philandering--I beg your pardon, Gussy, my dear, but I’ve been young in my day--and other young people looking on, you know: why they must either make fun of you or the water must come into their mouths.” The old lady laughed in the heartless way in which old ladies will laugh. She was only the more tickled when Gussy drew herself up, and, looking straight before her with a blank countenance and the sternest gravity, replied,