He looked at her insisting on an answer, and after a moment got it: “I thought, James, that you would never have done anything so foolish.” “I most certainly would not,” he returned; and he had walked as far as the corner before it struck him that as an answer it was not entirely satisfactory, but it seemed too late to go back. Later in the morning she had a visit from Louisa Overton, who drove over from her own house, in her umbrella-topped phaeton with the bay cobs which her father had so carefully selected for her. She came, as she explained, to welcome her dear Nellie, but her dear Nellie noted with uneasiness the unusual promptitude of the visit. There could not, of course, be the smallest chance of seeing Bob at that hour, but Nellie’s heart sank as she observed how often her cousin’s name was introduced into the conversation. It seemed to grow up spontaneously like a weed, and yet Nellie was sufficiently experienced in the peculiarities of her own sex to know it was a danger-signal. She wondered if the time had come for delivering the warning against her cousin which Emmons had advocated. She felt strangely adverse to delivering it. She tried a new mode of attack as the girl rose to go, after a final comment on Vickers’s conduct at the fire. “Upon my word, Louisa,” she said good-temperedly, “Bob seems to have made a most flattering impression on you.” Miss Overton smiled. “He is a charming person,” she answered. “Apropos, Mrs. Raikes says that the three best things in the world are a good novel, a muskmelon, and a handsome cousin.” “She has not the last, I am sure, or she would have learned to value it less highly,” Nellie returned. Miss Overton did not immediately answer. They had walked to the front door, and as she climbed into her trap, she observed that it was warm. Nellie put up her hand to her face. It was warm. She hoped her own heightened color had not suggested Louisa’s remark. The heat, she could see, wore on her uncle. He looked older and frailer than ever. Even Vickers showed it after three almost sleepless nights; and Emmons’s temper, she thought, was not quite as smooth as usual. He scolded her about Overton’s manner to Bob. The great man had actually sought him out in the train and had been seen walking along the platform with a hand through his arm. Emmons thought it a mistake to show approval of such a person as Bob. “Really, I think you are a little too severe, James,” she answered; and all she could say for herself was that she showed less irritation than she felt. “It seems hard if, as long as Bob is behaving well, he should be denied all human companionship.” “Oh, if you consider that Bob is entirely rehabilitated by two or three weeks without actual crime----”