trickling from the moist rocks, and emptied into the long out-scooped trunk of a cypress, that served as trough. The two horses plunged their heads deep in the clear water; the proud Beauregard quivering with satisfaction, as arching his neck and shaking off the clinging moisture, he waited for his more deliberate companion.

“Doesn’t it give one a sympathetic pleasure,” said Thérèse, “to see the relish with which they drink?”

“I never thought of it,” replied Hosmer, cynically. His face was unusually flushed, and diffidence was plainly seizing him again.

Thérèse was now completely mistress of herself, and during the remainder of the ride she talked incessantly, giving him no chance for more than the briefest answers.[Back to Table of Contents]

[Back to Table of Contents]

VI Melicent Talks.

“David Hosmer, you are the most supremely unsatisfactory man existing.”

Hosmer had come in from his ride, and seating himself in the large wicker chair that stood in the center of the room, became at once absorbed in reflections. Being addressed, he looked up at his sister, who sat sidewards on the edge of a table slightly removed, swaying a dainty slippered foot to and fro in evident impatience.

“What crime have I committed now, Melicent, against your code?” he asked, not fully aroused from his reverie.

“You’ve committed nothing; your sin is one of omission. I absolutely believe you go through the world with your eyes, to all practical purposes, closed. Don’t you notice anything; any change?”

“To be sure I do,” said Hosmer, relying on a knowledge lent him by previous similar experiences, and taking in the clinging artistic drapery that enfolded her tall spare figure, “you’ve a new gown on. I didn’t think to mention it, but I noticed it all the same.”

This admission of a discernment that he had failed to make evident, aroused Melicent’s uncontrolled mirth.

“A new gown!” and she laughed heartily. “A threadbare remnant! A thing that holds by shreds and tatters.”

She went behind her brother’s chair, taking his face between her hands, and turning it upward, kissed him on the forehead. With his head in such position, he could not fail to observe the 

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