“Miss Patience!” cried a strident voice.

Patience turned with a violent start. Ellen was a large blotch on the white beauty of the wood.

“There’s a young lady to see you. She didn’t give her name as I remember.”

Patience followed the servant resentfully. The world was cold and dull again. But when she recognised the Peele coachman and footman on the handsome sleigh before the door she forgot her dreams, and went eagerly into the house.

A girl was standing before the mantel, regarding through a lorgnette a row of photographs. She turned as she heard footsteps, and came forward with a cordial smile on her plain charming face. She wore a black cloth frock and turban which made Patience feel dowdy as Rosita’s magnificence had not.

“I am Hal,” she said, “and you are Patience, of course. I hope you have heard as much of me as I have of you. Dear old girl, I was awfully fond of her. You look so tired—are you?”

“A little. It is so good of you to come. Yes, I’ve heard a very great deal of you.”

“I’ll sit down, thank you. Let’s try this sofa. I’ve already tried the chairs, and they’re awful. But I suppose dear old Harriet never sat down at all. I wonder if she’ll be happy in heaven with nothing to do.”

Patience smiled sympathetically. “She ought to be glad of a rest, but I don’t believe she is.”

“She thought we were all heathens—dear old soul; but I did love her. What was the trouble? We only had one short letter from Miss Beale. Do tell me all about it.”

Miss Peele had an air of reposeful alertness. She leaned forward slightly, her eyes fixed on Patience’s with flattering attention. She looked a youthful worldling, a captivating type to a country girl. Her voice was very sweet, and exquisitely modulated. Occasionally it went down into a minor key.

“What shall you do with yourself, now?” she asked anxiously, when Patience had finished the brief story. “I am so interested in you. I don’t know why I haven’t called before, except that I never find time to do the things I most care for; but I have wanted to come a dozen times, and when we returned yesterday and heard of the dear old girl’s death I made up my mind to come at once. And I’m coming often. I know we shall be such good friends. I’m so glad she left you her money so you won’t have to work. It must be so horrid to work. I’m going to ask mamma to ask you to visit us. She’s feeling rather soft now over Cousin Harriet’s death, so I’ll strike before she gets the icebergs on. She isn’t pleasant then. I’ll tell her you don’t wear the white ribbon yet—” She broke into a light peal of laughter. “Poor mamma! how she used to suffer. Cousin Harriet’s white bow was the great cross of her life. It will go far toward reconciling her—Don’t think that my parent is heartless. She merely insists upon everything belonging to her to be sans reproche. That’s the reason we don’t always get along. What lovely hair you have—a real blonde cendrÉe. It’s all the rage in Paris. And that great coil is beautiful. Tell me, didn’t you find that Temperance work a hideous bore?”

“Oh, yes, but no one could resist Miss Tremont.”

“Indeed one couldn’t. I believe she’d have roped me in if I’d lived with her; but I’m a frivolous good-for-nothing thing. You look so serious. Do you always feel that way?”

Patience smiled broadly. “Oh, no. I often feel that I would be very frivolous indeed if circumstances would permit. It must be very interesting.”

“You get tired of yourself sometimes—I mean I do. Are you very religious?”

“I am not religious at all.”

“Oh, how awfully jolly. I do the regulation business, but it is really tragic to carry so much religion round all the time. I wonder how Cousin Harriet and the Lord hit it off, or if they liked each other better at a distance? I corresponded once with the brother of a school friend for a year, and when I met him I couldn’t endure him. Those things are very trying. I am going to call you Patience. May I? And if ever you call me Miss Peele you’ll be sorry. How awfully smart you’d look in gowns. My colouring is so commonplace. If I didn’t know how to dress, and hadn’t been taught to carry myself with an air, I’d be just nothing—no more and no less. But you have such a lovely nose and white skin—and that hair! You are aristocratic looking without being swagger. I’m the other way. You can acquire the one, but you can’t the other. When you have both you’ll be out of sight.

“What fun it would be,” she rambled on in her bright inconsequential way, “if Bev should fall in love with you and you’d marry him. Then I’d have such fun dressing you, and we’d get ahead of my cousin Honora Mairs, whom I hate, and who, I’m afraid, will get him. Propinquity and flattery will bring down any man—they’re such peacocks. But I’ll bring him to see you. You ought to have a violet velvet frock. I’d bet on Bev then. But, of course, you can’t wear colours yet, and that dead black is wonderfully becoming. Can I bring him up in a day or two?”

“Oh, yes,” said Patience, smiling as she recalled her brief periods of spiritual matrimony with Beverly Peele; “by all means. I’ll be so glad to meet all of you. And you are certainly good to take so much interest in me.”

“I am the angel of the family. Well, I must be off, or I’ll have to dine all by me lonely. None of the rest of the family uses slang: that is the reason I do. May is a grown-up baby, and never disobeyed her mamma in her life. Honora is a classic, and only swears in the privacy of her closet when her schemes fail. Mother—well, you’ve seen mother. As you may imagine, she doesn’t use slang. Papa doesn’t talk at all, and Bev is a prig where decent women are concerned. So, you see, I have to let off steam somehow, and as I haven’t the courage to be larky, I read French novels and use bad words.”

She rose and moved toward a heavy coat that lay on a chair. “Well, Patience—what a funny lovely old-fashioned name you have—I’m going to bring Bev to see you as a last resource. I’ve tried him on a dozen other girls, but it was no go. I’ll talk you up to him meanwhile—I’ll tell him that you are one of the cold haughty indifferent sort, and yet withal a village maiden. He admires blondes, and you’re such a natural one. We’ll come up Sunday on horseback. Now be sure to make him think you don’t care a hang whether he likes you or not—he’s been so run after. Isn’t it too funny? I did not come here on matchmaking thoughts intent, but I do like you, and we could have such jolly good fun together. I’ll teach you how to smoke cigarettes—”

“But Miss Peele—Hal—you know—I don’t want to marry your brother—I have never even seen him—much as I should like to live with you—I’d even smoke cigarettes to please you—but really—”

“Oh, I know, of course. I can only hope for the best, and Bev certainly is fascinating. At least he appears to be,” and she smiled oddly; “but being a man’s sister is much like being his valet, you know. Would you mind helping me into this coat?

“I hate these heavy fur things,” she said petulantly. “Oh, thanks—they don’t suit my light and airy architecture, and I can’t get up any dignity in them at all. I need fluffy graceful French things. You’d look superb in velvet and furs and all that sort of thing. Well, bye-bye,—no,—au revoir.”

She took Patience’s face between her hands and lightly kissed her on either cheek.

“Don’t be lonesome,” she said. “I’d go frantic in this house. Can’t I send you some books? I’ve a lot of naughty French ones—”

“No!” said Patience, abruptly, “I don’t want them. Don’t think I’m a prig,” she added, hastily, as a look of apprehension crossed Miss Peele’s face; “but I had a hideous shock to-day, and I don’t want to read anything similar at present—”

“Oh, tell me about it. How could you have a shock in Mariaville?”

“I didn’t. It was in New York—”

“Oh, was it real wicked? Did you have an adventure? Do tell me—Well, don’t, of course, if you don’t want to, only I’m so interested in you. Well, I must, must go;” and despite the furs she moved down the walk with exceeding grace. As she drove off she leaned out of the sleigh and waved her hand.

“Oh!” thought Patience, “I’m so glad she came. It was like fresh air after a corpse covered with sachet bags.” And then she went to the mantel and gazed upon Beverly Peele.