could not see his face fully, for the secret of any vital change that
might have come upon him. It could be that in the interval since she had
seen him he had seen the woman who was to take him from her. She was
always preparing herself for that, knowing that it must come almost as
certainly as death, and knowing that with all her preparation she should
not be ready for it. "I've got rather a long story to tell you and
rather a strange story," he said, lifting his head and looking round, but
not so impersonally that his mother did not know well enough to say to
the Swedish serving-woman:

"You needn't stay, Margit. I'll give Mr. Philip his breakfast. Well!"
she added, when they were alone.

"Well," he returned, with a smile that she knew he was forcing, "I have
seen the girl that wrote that letter."

"Not Jerusha Brown?"

"Not Jerusha Brown, but the girl all the same."

"Now go on, Philip, and don't miss a single word!" she commanded him,
with an imperious breathlessness. "You know I won't hurry you or
interrupt you, but you must--you really must-tell me everything. Don't
leave out the slightest detail."

"I won't," he said. But she was aware, from time to time, that she was
keeping her word better than he was keeping his, in his account of
meeting Miss Shirley and all the following events.

"You can imagine," he said, "what a sensation the swooning made, and the