Roden wondered a good deal during such moments as his thoughts reverted not to his ladylove, concerning Virginia’s recent neglect of him. Popocatepetl was his attendant now at meals, dried his newspapers, and gambolled for his amusement. Virginia had come to him on the afternoon of the day following that upon which he had announced to her his engagement, and had said she “didn’ know what took her las’ night. She cert’n’y was glad he was so happy. He mus’ please scuse her ’f she’d ben unperlite. She cert’n’y was glad.” But Roden missed her very much. Besides, he wished exceedingly to hear her sing again. He wanted to be quite sure that he had not deluded himself in regard to the possibilities contained in her sonorous voice. Virginia continued to be very economical of her presence, however, and three days afterwards he was summoned to New York by telegraph to attend the bedside of an ailing thorough-bred. Virginia did not come to tell him good-by. He thought it strange at the moment, but did not have time to ponder over it subsequently. She, in the mean time, kneeling behind the “slats” of her bedroom window-blinds, watched the little Canadian fishing-wagon as it drove away, with Popocatepetl proudly installed on the back seat. She held something crushed against her breast--an old Trinity College boating-cap which belonged to Roden. She knelt there for full a half-hour after the last grinding of the cart-wheels on the carriage-drive. No tears rose to soothe the burning in her eyes. She had not wept since that night spent by those lonely graves. At last she rose and went over beside the fire. The day was unusually raw for the season of the year. Rebellious robins chattered on the eaves. A fitful wind swept rudely over the fields. Virginia, with unseeing eyes on the low-smouldering fire, caressed the bit of blue cloth in her hands with absent, slow-moving fingers. Anon she lifted and examined it closely. It seemed to her that the lion on the coat of arms might have been better done. She remembered an old print of Daniel in the lions’ den which was in the big family Bible. Therein the king of beasts was, she thought, far more ably depicted. This lion had an inane expression, owing probably to the two black dots which stood for his fierce eyes, a paucity of mane, and a superfluity of tail which struck her as undignified. Suddenly she burst out laughing. Peal after peal of the merry, staccato sound rang through the winding passageways above, and echoed down into the lower halls; ripple upon ripple of wild merriment; a rush, an abandonment of jollity, in which she had not indulged for many a day. She tried in vain to stop. She could not. That little oblong lion with his much-curled tail was too much for her. Ha! ha! Oh, how funny--how funny it was! and how she enjoyed a good laugh! And was it not far, far better to laugh than to cry? Oh, that funny, funny, funny little beast! How merry he made her, how jolly, how care-free, once more!