the girl's ear. "I hope--I trust--he will be, before we leave Ashurst."

Lois turned away abruptly; how could she grieve this gentle invalid!

"She'll find out what Arabella Forsythe is, one of these days," Mrs. Dale
thought, "but it's just as well she should love her for the present." Nor
did she lose the opportunity of using her influence to bring about the
desired consummation.

Lois had gone, at Miss Deborah's request, to the piano, and begun to
sing, in her sweet girlish voice, some old-fashioned songs which the
sisters liked.

"Jamie's on the stormy sea!" sang Lois, but her voice trembled, and she
missed a note, for Mrs. Dale had left the group of ladies about the fire,
and bent over her shoulder.

"You know they go on Saturday, Lois," she said. "Do, now, I beg of you,
be a sensible girl. I never saw a man so much in love. You will be
perfectly happy, if you will only be sensible! I hope you will be at home
alone to-morrow."

When the gentlemen entered, Dick Forsythe was quick to make his way to
Lois, sitting in the glimmer of the wax-lights in the sconces, at the old
piano.

She stopped, and let her hands fall with a soft crash on the yellow keys.

"Do go on," he pleaded.