her, carving her partridge, offering her this and that; in a word, falling in love. It happened as naturally as if he had never allowed for it. The flower of her beauty had bloomed in a night, that of his passion in a day. When at last she laid down her fork, and, sinking back in her chair, folded her hands on her arms and sat facing him with a friendly, pointless, satisfied smile, and then, raising her goblet, threw back her head and showed her white throat and glanced at him over the brim, while he noted her plump ringless hand, with the little finger curled out, he felt that he was in health again. She strolled about the room, idly touching the instruments on his dressing-table and the odds and ends on his chimney-piece. Her dress, which she had released from the loops and festoons then in fashion, trailed rustling on the carpet, and lent her a sumptuous, ladyish air which seemed to give a price to this domiciliary visit. “Everywhere, everywhere, a little dust,” she said. “I see it is more than time I should be back here. I have been waiting for you to invite me; but as you don’t seem inclined, I invite myself.” Roger said nothing for a moment. Then with a blush, “I don’t mean to invite you; I don’t want you.” Nora stared. “Don’t want me? _Par exemple!_” “I want you as a visitor, but not as a—” And he fumbled for his word. “As a resident?” She took it gayly. “You turn me out of doors?” “No; I don’t take you in—yet awhile. My dear child, I have a reason.” Nora wondered, still smiling. “I might consider this very unkind,” she said, “if I had not the patience of an angel. Would you kindly mention your reason?” “Not now,” he answered. “But never fear, when it comes it will be all-sufficient!” But he imparted it, a couple of days after, to Mrs. Keith, who came late in the afternoon to present her compliments on his recovery. She displayed an almost sisterly graciousness, enhanced by a lingering spice of coquetry; but somehow, as she talked, he felt as if she were an old woman and he still a young man. It seemed a sort of hearsay that they should ever have been mistress and lover. “Nora will have told you,” he said, “of my wishing you kindly to keep her awhile longer. I can give you no better proof of my regard, for the fact is, my dear friend, I am in love with her.” “Come!” she cried. “This is interesting.” “I wish her to accept me freely, as she would accept any other man. For that purpose I must cease to be, in all personal matters, her guardian.” “She must herself forget her wardship, if there is to be any sentimentalizing between you,—all but forget it, at least. Let me speak frankly,” she went on. Whereupon Roger frowned a bit, for he had known her frankness to be somewhat incisive. “It is all very well that you should be in love with her. You are not the first. Don’t be frightened; your chance is fair. The needful point is that she should be just the least bit in love with you.”