I at least am not dying of love for him. I
think him a detestable prig, an insufferable
pedant, and a ridiculous coxcomb. You
may tell him so, with my compliments, if
you like, Aunt Daisy." So saying, Myrrha
left the room.

In five or ten minutes she returned to it,
knelt down before Daisy, and held her soft
cheek to Daisy's lips. " Please forgive
me, Aunt Daisy. I was abominably rude.
Something had put me out."

Daisy kissed her, but did not speak.
Myrrha got up, lingered irresolutely a
moment, then went away.

Daisy did not attach much importance
to Myrrha' s plain denial of any engagement
between herself and Mr. Stewart; she knew
that Myrrha was clever at all kinds of prevarication,
and not even appalled by positive
untruth. She concluded there had been
between Myrrha and Mr. Stewart some
more or less serious quarrel; she had noticed
that Mr. Stewart had looked gravely
displeased, and had bid Miss Brown
goodnight very coldly.

The next day Mr. Stewart did not come
to the cottage, nor the next. Myrrha had
no rides; she drooped visibly. The third
day Daisy noticed that Myrrha seemed
always listening, and on the watch. She
was much in the garden, always where she
could see the gate.

In the afternoon of this third day Mr.
Stewart walked ever. Myrrha met him at
the gate, and Daisy saw the meeting from
the open drawing-room window.

Mr. Stewart was about to pass Myrrha
with a bow.

She stepped in front of him. " My visit is
to your Aunt Daisy, Miss Brown."

Myrrha laid her hand on his arm pleadingly.
Daisy could not hear what was
spoken now, the tone of both was low. But
Myrrha's upturned, earnest face, and Mr.
Stewart's attentive, listening attitude told
her enough. Evidently Myrrha succeeded
in obtaining forgiveness for whatever
offence she had committed. She kept her
hand upon his arm, and Myrrha laughing,
Mr. Stewart trying still to look grave,
they came into the house, into the drawing-room
where Daisy sat.

"Aunt Daisy," Myrrha said, coming and
kneeling down before her, "I am Mr.
Stewart's captive, and he insists upon
bringing me to your feet. Our quarrel the
other day—the quarrel that made me so
cross—was about you, Aunt Daisy. Mr.
Stewart will only forgive mo on condition
that I express my sorrow for having spoken
rudely and falsely. I express my sorrow
for having spoken rudely and falsely. Please
forgive me, and then I shall be taken for
some rides again!"

Daisy leaned down and kissed her.

Myrrha sprang up.

"There, now I shall get a ride to-morrow,
shan't I, Mr. Stewart?"

"Certainly, if you wish, and if the
weather allow."

"All the same," muttered Myrrha, nodding
to herself as she moved away, " I said
nothing but what was true."

And so, for a little while, things went on
just as before again.

One day, Mr. Stewart asked Daisy to
show Myrrha some of her sketches, adding:

"I'm surprised to find she didn't even
know you could draw."

"I never do draw now."

"But you will let her see how you used
to draw. If my memory is at all accurate,
she will be able to learn a good deal
—should she choose to do so—by looking over
your portfolio. May I fetch it? Is it where
I can find it?"

"No; I must look for it myself."

Daisy went to her room and dragged a
large old portfolio out of a closet; hastily
turning over its contents she withdrew
several sketches, which she put away out of
sight. They were studies of foreign scenes,
and would have led to much questioning.
She sent the folio down-stairs, and was a
few minutes before she followed it. It was
painful to her to have looked it over; it
was ruffling too many pages of memory.

Daisy, when she returned to the drawing-room,
sat apart, took up a book, and tried
not to turn the attention of either her eyes
or her ears towards the table where Myrrha
and Mr. Stewart sat. She was not long
left in peace.

"Where is this, Daisy?" Mr. Stewart
asked. "An old farm-house I don't
remember to have seen. A curious study of
greens and greys."

Daisy looked up: Mr. Stewart held in his
hand a careful drawing of Moor-Edge
farm-house, made long ago, before it had come to
be the house of her dear old nurse. Daisy
paused, her colour changed: she answered,
trying to speak carelessly:

"That is the farm-house nurse expected
to go to when she married. She asked me
to make her a picture of it. I did that for
her before she was married, I thought she
had it."

"Didn't she go to it, then? Isn't this
where you stayed with her?"