the portrait of her husband hanging in the smoking-room.

But instantly she strove to put that away; the portrait was by Sargent, a portrait she had always disliked, because the great painter had painted an expression into her husband's face which she had never seen there. An aged and unbearable aunt of hers had declared that Sargent painted beneath the surface; she resented the suggestion, because what she read beneath the surface of her husband's portrait sent hot blood into her face.

Thinking of these things, she saw the spring sunshine gilding the gray branches of the park trees. Here and there elms spread tinted with green; chestnuts and maples were already in the full glory of new leaves; the leafless twisted tangles of wistaria hung thick with scented purple bloom; everywhere the scarlet blossoms of the Japanese quince glowed on naked shrubs, bedded in green lawns.

Her husband had loved the country.... There was one spot in the world which he had loved above all others--the Sagamore Angling Club. She had never been there. But she meant to go. Probably to-morrow.... And before she went she must send that dog back to Langham.

At the cathedral she signalled to stop, and sent the brougham back, saying she would walk home. And the first man she met was Langham.

III

There was nothing extraordinary in it. His club was there on the corner, and it was exactly his hour for the club.

"It is so very fortunate ... for me," he said. "I did want to see you.... I am going north to-morrow."

"Of course it's about the dog," she said, pleasantly.

He laughed. "I am so glad that you will accept him--"

"But I can't," she said; ... "and thank you so much for asking me."

For a moment his expression touched her, but she could not permit expressions of men's faces to arouse her compunction, so she turned her eyes resolutely ahead towards the spire of the marble church.He walked beside her in silence. 
"I also am going north to-morrow," she said, politely. He did not answer. Every day since her widowhood, every day for three years, she had decided to make that pilgrimage ... some time. And now, crossing Union Square on that lovely afternoon late 

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