forehead. Carlisle turned on her other side and snuggled with more
relaxation beneath the pale-blue quilt. Drowsiness stole over her,
seducing thought. Presently she slept, and dreamed of Mr. Canning.




IV

Mr. Hugo Canning, of the well-known Pursuing-Sex; how the
Great Young Man pursued Miss Heth to a Summer-house, and what
stopped his Thundering Feet.


Nor were the figments of sweet sleep too fanciful or far-flown. About
eight-thirty o'clock, when Mrs. and Miss Heth stepped from a descending
lift into the glaring publicity of the main floor, the first object that
their eyes fell upon was Mr. Hugo Canning in the flesh. The second was
Cousin Willie Kerr, even more in the flesh, trotting loyally at his
side. At this precise instant, in short, the celebrated transient
quitted the dining-room for the relaxations of his evening.

The coincidence of the moment was pure: one hundred per cent, as they
say commercially. One takes it to mean that Destiny, having handled a
favorite child somewhat roughly for a time, now turned back its smiling
mother-face. The ladies Heth, having dined refinedly in their
sitting-room, descended in search of cooling breezes, or for any other
reason why. Over the spaces of the great court, half lobby, half parlor,
Miss Heth had seen the masculine apparitions an instant before they saw
her: or just in time, that is to say, to be showing them now her