but so--really--well, thank you."

Miss Lady fled gladly and swiftly enough. For an instant she halted,
uncertain, on the wide gallery, her face troubled, her attitude
undecided. Then, in swift mutiny, she sprang down the steps and was
off in open desertion. She fled down the garden walk, and presently
was welcomed riotously by a score of dogs and puppies, long since her
friends.

Left alone, the elder lady sat for a moment in thought. Her face now
seemed harder in outline, more enigmatical. She gazed after the girl
who left her, and into her eyes came a look which one must have
called strangely unmaternal--a look not tender, but hard,
calculating, cold.

"She is pretty," she murmured to herself half-aloud. "She is going to
be very pretty--the prettiest of the family in generations, perhaps.
Well-handled, that girl could marry anybody. I'll have to be careful
she doesn't marry the wrong one. They're headstrong, these Ellisons.
Still, I think I can handle this one of them. In fact, I
_must_." She smiled gently and settled down into a half-reverie,
purring to herself. "Dear me!" she resumed at length, starting up,
"how warm it grows! Where has that girl gone? I do believe she has
run away. Delphine! Ah-h-h-h, Delphine!"

There came no audible sound of steps, but presently there stood, just
within the parted draperies, the figure of the servant thus called
upon. Yet that title sat ill upon this tall young woman who now stood
awaiting the orders of her mistress. Garbed as a servant she was, yet
held herself rather as a queen. Her hair, black and luxuriant, was