reality. Then there will be no harm in it."

"What a jesuitical casuist! You had better read what Cardinal
Newman says in his Apologia about lying, young man."

Neither of them minded me, for just then there was a stir of drapery
round the corner of the piazza from where we were sitting, and the
next moment Mrs. Deering and Miss Gage showed themselves.

"We were just talking of you," said Mrs. March. "May I present our
friend Mr. Kendricks, Mrs. Deering? And Miss Gage?"

At sight of the young man, so well dressed and good-looking, who
bowed so prettily to her, and then bustled to place chairs for them,
a certain cloud seemed to lift from Miss Gage's beautiful face, and
to be at least partly broken on Mrs. Deering's visage. I began to
talk to the girl, and she answered in good spirits, and with more
apparent interest in my conversation than she had yet shown, while
Kendricks very properly devoted himself to the other ladies. Both
his eyes were on them, but I felt that he had a third somehow upon
her, and that the smallest fact of her beauty and grace was not lost
upon him. I knew that her rich, tender voice was doing its work,
too, through the commonplaces she vouchsafed to me. There was a
moment when I saw him lift a questioning eyebrow upon Mrs. March,
and saw her answer with a fleeting frown of affirmation. I cannot
tell just how it was that, before he left us, his chair was on the
other side of Miss Gage's, and I was eliminated from the dialogue.

He did not stay too long. There was another tableau of him on foot,
taking leave of Mrs. March, with a high hand-shake, which had then