big maiden's-blush up there," pointing to a pink-suffused specimen
of rose grandiflora hanging on the wall. "Get it, Clarence,--that
one,--I'll show you where,--there!" They had already plunged into the
leafy bramble, and, standing on tiptoe, with her hand on his shoulder
and head upturned, Susy's cheek had innocently approached Clarence's
own. At this moment Clarence, possibly through some confusion of color,
fragrance, or softness of contact, seemed to have availed himself of the
opportunity, in a way which caused Susy to instantly rejoin Mary Rogers
with affected dignity, leaving him to follow a few moments later with
the captured flower.

Without trying to understand the reason of to-morrow's rendezvous, and
perhaps not altogether convinced of the reality of Susy's troubles, he,
however, did not find that difficulty in carrying out her other commands
which he had expected. Mrs. Peyton was still gracious, and, with
feminine tact, induced him to talk of himself, until she was presently
in possession of his whole history, barring the episode of his meeting
with Susy, since he had parted with them. He felt a strange satisfaction
in familiarly pouring out his confidences to this superior woman,
whom he had always held in awe. There was a new delight in her womanly
interest in his trials and adventures, and a subtle pleasure even in her
half-motherly criticism and admonition of some passages. I am afraid he
forgot Susy, who listened with the complacency of an exhibitor; Mary,
whose black eyes dilated alternately with sympathy for the performer and
deprecation of Mrs. Peyton's critical glances; and Peyton, who, however,
seemed lost in thought, and preoccupied. Clarence was happy. The softly
shaded lights in the broad, spacious, comfortably furnished drawing-room
shone on the group before him. It was a picture of refined domesticity
which the homeless Clarence had never known except as a vague,
half-painful, boyish remembrance; it was a realization of welcome that