women. "I shall be ready in half an hour. Will you go away, and comeback
then? Not sooner."

"Anything you please, Miss Breen," he said, laughing in his
mystification. "In thirty minutes, or thirty days."

They went back to the steps, and he mounted his buggy. She sat down, and
taking some work from her pocket, bent her head over it. At first she was
pale, and then she grew red. But these fluctuations of color could not
keep her spectators long; one by one they dispersed and descended the
cliff; and when she rose to go for her hat the last had vanished, with a
longing look at her. It was Miss Gleason.

Grace briefly announced her purpose to her mother, who said, "I hope you
are not doing anything impulsive"; and she answered, "No, I had quite
made up my mind to it last night."

Mr. Libby had not yet returned when she went back to the piazza, and she
walked out on the road by which he must arrive. She had not to walk far.
He drew in sight before she had gone a quarter of a mile, driving
rapidly. "Am I late?" he asked, turning, and pulling up at the roadside,
with well-subdued astonishment at encountering her.

"Oh, no; not that I know." She mounted to the seat, and they drove off in
a silence which endured for a long time. If Libby had been as vain as he
seemed light, he must have found it cruelly unflattering, for it ignored
his presence and even his existence. She broke the silence at last with a
deep-drawn sigh, as frankly sad as if she had been quite alone, but she
returned to consciousness of him in it. "Mr. Libby, you must think it is
very strange for me to ask you to drive me to Corbitant without troubling