A fancy that Marian has brought Miss Hescott here to say something occurs to him, and he curses himself for the thought.

Is he growing suspicious of _everyone ?_ "I was going down to one of the lower farms," says he in a light tone.

He had not been going there, but the evasion seems impossible to avoid.
"You won't find anything _there,"_ says Mrs.Bethune, smiling at him.

She is dressed entirely in black, and from under the huge black hat that shades her face her eyes gleam up at him in a sort of mockery--sad, yet beseeching.

She is looking beautiful! Her pale face, so refined; the masses of her rich, red hair shining gorgeously in the clear sunlight.
"No?
I shall find old Wicks and his wife, at all events." "Oh, that?
Yes." "Why, what did you think I was looking for ?" "I really hardly know;" she smiles, and then says quietly, "Why, amusement, of course." At this moment Minnie Hescott, who detests being left out of anything, determines on boring a way into the _tte--tte_ before her.
"Where is Tita ?" asks she.