Tracys! But that idea was too horrible to contemplate, and so he tried
to put it from his mind, and to be as calm and quiet as possible until
lunch-time, when, with no very great amount of alacrity and
cheerfulness, he started for home, where, as he had been warned by his
wife when he left her in the morning, 'he was to lunch standing up or
anyhow, as she had no time for parade that day.'




CHAPTER II.

ARTHUR TRACY.


Although it was a morning in October, the grass in the park was as green
as in early June, while the flowers in the beds and borders, the
geraniums, the phlox, the stocks, and verbenas were handsomer, if
possible, than they had been in the summer-time: for the rain, which had
fallen almost continually during the month of September, had kept them
fresh and bright. Here and there the scarlet and golden tints of autumn
were beginning to show on the trees; but this only added a new charm to
a place which was noted for its beauty, and was the pride and admiration
of the town.

And yet Mrs. Frank Tracy, who stood on the wide piazza, looking after a
carriage which was moving down the avenue which led through the park to
the highway, did not seem as happy as the mistress of that house ought
to have been, standing there in the clear, crisp morning, with a silken
wrapper trailing behind her, a coquettish French cap on her head, and