He passed her hand through his arm and held it there against his heart, while he stood looking hard at the pavement, as if to steady himself amid this great convulsion of things. Then raising his head, “Come,” he said; “come!” But she detained him, laying her other hand on his arm. “No; you must understand first. If I am wiser now, I have learnt wisdom at my cost. I am not the girl you proposed to on Sunday. I feel—I feel _dishonored_!” she said, uttering the word with a vehemence that stirred his soul to its depths. “My own poor child!” he murmured, staring. “There is a young girl in that house,” Nora went on, “who will tell you that I am shameless!” “What house? what young girl?” “I don’t know her name. Hubert is engaged to marry her.” Roger gave a glance at the house behind them, as if to fling defiance and oblivion upon all that it suggested and contained. Then turning to Nora with a smile of exquisite tenderness: “My dear Nora, what have we to do with Hubert’s young girls?” Roger, the reader will admit, was on a level with the occasion,—as with every other occasion that subsequently presented itself. Mrs. Keith and Mrs. Lawrence are very good friends. On being complimented on possessing the confidence of so charming a woman as Mrs. Lawrence, Mrs. Keith has been known to say, opening and shutting her fan, “The fact is, Nora is under a very peculiar obligation to me!” Cambridge: Electrotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.