"Still," remarked Mrs. Merriam, "for my own part, I don't call it good news that he is going." "I meant," said Agnes, "good news for him." "It is bad news for us," Mrs. Merriam replied. "He will leave a gap. I have grown inconveniently fond of him myself." But Agnes made no response, and soon afterward went to her room in silence. She was rather silent the next day when she made her visit to Bertha. Mrs. Merriam observed that she was rather silent at home; but, having seen her retire within herself before, she was too just to assign a definite reason for her quiet mood. Still she watched her with great interest, which had a fashion of deepening when Laurence Arbuthnot appeared upon the scene. But there was no change in her manner toward Arbuthnot. She was glad to see him; she was interested in his plans. Her gentle pleasure in his society seemed neither greater nor less than usual; her gentle regret at his approaching absence from their circle said absolutely nothing. In the gayeties of the closing season they saw even more of each other than usual. "It will be generous of you to allow me a few additional privileges," Arbuthnot said; "an extra dance or so, for instance, on occasion; a few more calls that I am entitled to. Will you kindly, if you please, regard me in the light of a condemned criminal, and be lenient with me in my last moments?" She did not refuse to be lenient with him. Much as he had been in the habit of enjoying the evenings spent in her parlor, he had never spent evenings such as fell to him in these last days. Somehow it happened that he found her alone more frequently. Mrs. Merriam had letters to write, or was otherwise occupied; so it chanced that he saw her as it had not been his fortune to see her very often. But it was decided that he was to spend no more winters in Washington, for some time, at least; and, though he spent his evenings thus agreeably, he was making daily preparation for his departure, and it cannot be said that he enjoyed the task. There had been a time, it is true, when he would have greeted with pleasure the prospect of the change before him; but that time was past. "I am having my bad quarter of an hour," he said, "and it serves me right." But as the days slipped by he found it even a worse quarter of an hour than he had fancied it would be. It cost him an effort to bear himself as it was only discretion that he should. His one resource lay in allowing himself no leisure. When he was not otherwise occupied, he spent his time with his friends. He was oftenest with the professor and Bertha. He had some quiet hours in the professor's study, and in the parlor, where Bertha sat or lay upon the sofa before the fire. She did not allow herself to lie upon the sofa often, and refused to be regarded as an invalid; but Arbuthnot never found himself alone with her without an overpowering realization of the change which had taken place in her. But she rarely spoke of herself.