At which he let her go again and answered curtly: "No; nothing.
Perfectly well, the last I heard. In Paris, and enjoying himself in
his own peculiar fashion."

She drew in her breath and turned her face away; they were both
silent. Then she said, dully, that she never heard any news. "Mr.
Raynor sends me my accounts every three months, but he never says
anything about--Frederick."

"I suppose there isn't anything to say. Look here, Nelly, hasn't that
stage-driver brought the hamper yet? When are we going to have
something to eat?"

"Oh, pretty soon," she said impatiently.

They were standing at one of the long windows in the parlor; through
the tilted slats of the Venetian blinds the April sunshine fell in
pale bars across her hair and dress, across the old Turkey carpet on
the floor, across the high white wainscoting and half-way up the
landscape-papered walls. The room was full of cheerful dignity; the
heavy, old-fashioned furniture of the Stuffed Animal House was
unchanged, even the pictures, hanging rather near the ceiling, had not
been removed--steel-engravings of Landseer's dogs, and old and very
good colored prints of Audubon's birds. The mantel-piece of black
marble veined with yellow was supported by fluted columns; on it were
two blown-glass vases of decalcomania decoration, then two gilt
lustres with prisms, then two hand-screens of woolwork, and in the
middle an ormolu clock--"Iphigenia in Aulis"--under a glass shade. In
the recess at one side of the fireplace was a tall bookcase with