Um--" "No.

Take her,"-- Frona was thinking quickly,--"no; bring her up here." "Much better--" "Go!" How-ha grunted, and yielded up the obedience she could not withhold; though, as she went down the stairs to the door, in a tenebrous, glimmering way she wondered that the accident of white skin or swart made master or servant as the case might be.
In the one sweep of vision, Lucile took in Frona smiling with extended hand in the foreground, the dainty dressing-table, the simple finery, the thousand girlish evidences; and with the sweet wholesomeness of it pervading her nostrils, her own girlhood rose up and smote her.

Then she turned a bleak eye and cold ear on outward things.
"I am glad you came," Frona was saying.

"I have _so_ wanted to see you again, and--but do get that heavy _parka_ off, please.

How thick it is, and what splendid fur and workmanship!" "Yes, from Siberia." A present from St.Vincent, Lucile felt like adding, but said instead, "The Siberians have not yet learned to scamp their work, you know." She sank down into the low-seated rocker with a native grace which could not escape the beauty-loving eye of the girl, and with proud-poised head and silent tongue listened to Frona as the minutes ticked away, and observed with impersonal amusement Frona's painful toil at making conversation.
"What has she come for ?" Frona asked herself, as she talked on furs and weather and indifferent things.
"If you do not say something, Lucile, I shall get nervous, soon," she ventured at last in desperation.