As autumn sped on Brenda was not very ardent in following up the Mansion work. But what a perfect autumn it was! How bracing the air! How much more delightful to spend the daylight hours in long rides out over the bridle-path, along the broad boulevard, or in the narrower byways of the suburbs. Sometimes, instead of riding, Arthur and Brenda would walk even as far as the reservoir and back. One afternoon in late November they had circled the lovely sheet of water that lies embosomed among the hills of Brookline, and, waiting for a car, had sat down on a wayside seat.

"Except for the bare trees it's hard to believe that this is November," Brenda had said.

"Yes," responded Arthur. "Days like this almost redeem the bad character of the New England climate."

"Oh, Arthur, there isn't a better all-round climate anywhere."

"After a winter in California, I should think that you'd know better than that."

Waiting for a car they had sat down on a wayside seat

The argument went a little further, and Brenda made out her case very well, quoting the surprise of Californians and Southerners, who had come to Boston expecting an Arctic winter, to find only an occasional frigid day.

"Those must have been exceptional winters;" and Arthur shrugged his shoulders in a way that always provoked Brenda as he concluded, "Say what you will, it is always a vile winter climate."

"Then I'm sure," retorted Brenda, "I don't see why you plan to spend the winter here."

"Oh, indeed! I fancied that you knew the reason."

Taking no notice of this pacific remark, Brenda continued:

"Yes, if I were you I wouldn't stay in so dreadful a place; you certainly have no important business to keep you. Why, papa said—"

She did not finish the sentence. Arthur frowned ominously, and he abruptly signalled a car just coming in sight.

Brenda hardly understood why Arthur was so silent on the way home. She did not realize that her allusion to her father had annoyed him. Arthur knew that Mr. Barlow did not altogether approve of his lack of a profession. After completing his studies he had not wished to practise law. A slight impediment in his speech was likely to prevent his being a good pleader, and the opportunity that he desired for office practice had not yet offered. His personal income was just enough to permit him to drift without a settled profession. There was danger that he might learn to prefer a life of idleness to one in which work had the larger part.

Yet Arthur's intentions were the best in the world. He really was only waiting for the right thing to present itself, and although Brenda had not quoted her father's words, his imagination had flown ahead of what she had said, and he was angry at the implied criticism.

"No, I can't come in," he said, as he left Brenda at her door. "I have an engagement."

"Oh, what—"

Then Brenda checked herself. If he did not care to tell her, she could afford to hide her curiosity. After he left her she wondered what the engagement was.

"I'll see you at the studio to-morrow." This was Arthur's parting word, in a pleasanter tone than that of a moment before.

"Yes, perhaps so; I'm really not sure."

The next day, toward four o'clock, Brenda and her little niece, Lettice, mounted the stairs to the studio. The stairs were long and narrow, for Ralph Weston, on his return from Europe, had chosen a studio in the top of one of the old houses opposite the Garden, in preference to a newer building.

When his wife and her sister had protested that he would see them very seldom if he persisted in having this inaccessible studio, "It may seem ungallant to say so," he had said, "but that is one of my reasons for choosing to perch myself in this eyrie. I am all the less likely to be interrupted when seeking inspiration for a masterpiece. If I were connected with the earth by an elevator I should never be safe from interruption. In fact, I should probably urge you and your friends to spend your spare time here. But now, knowing that it would be an imposition to expect you to climb those stairs more than once a week, I feel quite secure until Thursday rolls around."

"Oh, you needn't worry. That glimpse across the Garden from your window showing the State House as the very pinnacle of the city is beautiful, but we can live without it, if you can exist without us;" and Brenda drew herself up with dignity.

On this particular afternoon as she reached the studio door with Lettice clinging to her hand she was flushed and almost out of breath.

Within the studio her sister Agnes, giving a few last touches to the table, exclaimed in surprise at sight of the little girl.

"Why, Lettice, what in the world are you doing here?"

"Oh, auntie found me in the park, and she sent nurse off."

Then Brenda explained that Lettice looked so sweet that she just couldn't bear to leave her behind, "and nurse," she added, "fortunately had a very important errand down town, and was so glad that I could take Lettice off her hands, and so—"

"'The lady protests too much, methinks,'" interposed Ralph. "But you really need not apologize. I am always glad to have Lettice here, even though her mother does think her too young to receive at afternoon teas."

"At four years old—I should think so. There, dear, you mustn't touch anything on the table," for the little girl, on tiptoe, was trying to reach a plate of biscuit.

Lettice withdrew her hand quickly, and, when her wraps were removed, allowed herself to be perched on a tabaret, where her mother said she was safe from harming or being harmed.

The studio was filled with trophies that Mr. and Mrs. Weston had collected abroad. The high carved mantle-piece was the work of some medieval Hollander, the curtain shutting off one end of the room was old Norman tapestry—the most valuable of all their possessions. Each chair had, as Brenda sometimes said, a different nationality. Her own preference was for the Venetian seat, with its curving back and elaborate carving. As it grew darker outside the studio was brightened by the light from a pair of Roman candlesticks.

Only one or two of the paintings on the wall were Mr. Weston's work. When asked, he always said that he had very little to show, and that he did not believe in boring his guests by driving them, against their judgment, perhaps, to praise what they saw.

"Mock modesty!" Brenda had exclaimed at this expression of opinion.

"If I were sure that that was a genuine Tintoretto, I should believe that you were afraid of coming in direct competition with an old master; though, to tell you the truth, I'm glad that your work is a little brighter and livelier," she concluded.

One or two callers had now come in, and Brenda took her place at the tea-table, that Agnes might be free to move about the large studio. Soon the nurse appeared, and Lettice, protesting that she was a big girl and ought to stay, was ignominiously carried home.

"Where's Arthur?" asked Ralph, as he stood near Brenda, waiting for her to pour a cup of tea for a guest.

"I'm sure I don't know."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," responded Ralph ceremoniously. "I fancied that you might have heard him say what he intended to do."

Ralph went off with the tea, and Brenda continued to pour for other guests. But her mind was wandering. She served lemon when the guest had asked for cream, and generously dropped two lumps into the cup of one who had expressly requested no sugar. In spite of herself her eye travelled often to the door, and an observer would have seen that her mind was far away. When at last she saw Arthur entering the room some one was with him, and the two were laughing and chatting gayly.

"Oh, we had such a time getting here," cried the shrill voice of Belle. "Mr. Weston's been making calls with me in Jamaica Plain, and the cars were blocked coming back, so that it seemed as if we should never get here."

"But we're glad to arrive at last;" and Arthur moved toward the table, while Belle lingered for a word or two with Agnes and her husband.

"Poor thing!" exclaimed Belle, when at last she joined Arthur beside the table. "Poor thing! have you been shut up here pouring tea all the afternoon? You ought to have been with us; we've had a perfectly lovely time."

"You don't care for sweet things, so I won't give you any sugar," said Brenda, without replying directly to Belle.

"Come, Belle, you must see this sketch of Lettice. It is the one you were asking about." Agnes had come to the rescue.

As Belle turned away, Arthur tried to make his peace, for he saw that in some way he had displeased Brenda. He explained that he had merely happened to meet Belle, who was out on a calling expedition. He had accompanied her to one or two houses, because when she had paid these visits she intended to go to the studio. "I really meant to call for you, although you were so uncertain yesterday about coming," he concluded apologetically.

"Of course you knew I would come. I always do on Thursdays," replied Brenda; "but you were not obliged to call for me if you had something pleasanter to do."

"Ah, Belle is never out of temper." Arthur spoke significantly, annoyed by Brenda's unusual dignity of manner. Then, as she turned to speak to some one at the other side of the table, he crossed the room and joined Belle.

Since the death of her grandmother two years before, Belle and her mother had been away from Boston. They expected to spend the coming season in Washington, as they had the preceding. Belle now pronounced Boston altogether too old-fashioned a place for a person of cosmopolitan tastes, and she dazzled the younger girls and the undergraduates of her acquaintance by talking of diplomatic and state dignitaries with the greatest freedom. According to her own estimate of herself, she was one of the brightest stars in Washington society.

Although she and Brenda were less intimate than formerly, when Belle was in town she was with Brenda more than with any other girl of her acquaintance. Despite her insincerity and her various other failings, now much clearer to Brenda than in her school days, Belle had certain qualities that made her very companionable, and Brenda was inclined to overlook her less amiable traits. Indeed, she had clung to Belle in spite of the protests of various other girls. But to-day she felt impatient with Belle. Her high, sharp voice grated on her ear. Her witticisms seemed particularly shallow, and almost for the first time Brenda realized that the words with which Belle raised a laugh from those present carried a sting for some one absent.

Again Belle approached her. "I suppose your cousin never indulges in frivolities like this. I hear that she has withdrawn altogether from the world into some kind of a home or institution."

"There, Belle, how silly you are! If you'd spend more time in Boston, you'd at least hear things straight. Julia is just as fond of frivolity as any of us, only it's the right kind of frivolity."

"Oh, excuse me," exclaimed Belle with mock sorrow. "I had entirely forgotten your new point of view. You used to feel so differently about your cousin."

"Well, it is irritating to hear you talk about her being in an institution. Surely you've heard about Miss South and the old Du Launy Mansion; and if you go up there and call, you'll see that they are not shut out from the world."

"Dear! dear! why need you take everything so seriously. There! why, it's half-past five! I'm really afraid to go home alone."

This was said as Arthur came within earshot, and, of course, he could only offer to go home with her, as she professed to be in too great a hurry to wait for Brenda and the rest of the party.

"But I will come back for you," murmured Arthur, as he turned away.

"No, thank you; you needn't," responded Brenda stiffly; "I have Ralph and Agnes, and really I don't care for any one else."

"Very well, then, we'll say good evening;" and the two young people went off after Belle had said her farewells very effusively to all in the studio.

As Brenda sat alone in a corner of the studio after the other guests had gone, she had an opportunity to think over the events of the past few years which some of Belle's sharp remarks had brought up. Ralph and Agnes were busy discussing designs for some picture-frames that he was to have made, and, sitting apart, Brenda in a rather unusual fit of reverie recalled some of the happenings of the six years since her cousin Julia had first come into her life. When first she learned that her orphan cousin, who was a year and a half her senior, was to become a member of her family, she had been far from pleased. Without feeling jealousy in its meanest form, she was annoyed lest the presence of Julia should interfere with her enjoyment of her little circle of intimate friends. Edith Blair, Nora Gostar, Belle Gregg and she had formed a pleasant circle, "The Four," into which she did not care to have a fifth enter. Consequently she was far from kind to her cousin, and would not invite her to the weekly meetings of the group, when they gathered at her house to work for a bazaar. Belle prompted and upheld Brenda in her attitude toward her cousin, while Nora and Edith were Julia's champions. Later Julia had an opportunity to behave very generously toward Brenda, and from that time the cousins were good friends. Belle's departure for boarding-school and her later absence in Washington had naturally lessened her intimacy with Brenda. Julia, after two years at Miss Crawdon's school with Brenda, had entered Radcliffe College, where in her four years' course she had made many friends, and had been graduated with honor. Belle, as well as Julia and Brenda, had been one of Miss South's pupils at Miss Crawdon's school, but she was one of the few with no interest whatever in the work begun at the Mansion—a work which the majority had been only too glad to help.

Belle had never shown herself to Brenda in so unlovely a light as on this particular afternoon at the studio. Yet she had often been far more disagreeable in her general way of expressing herself. The difference was that now Brenda herself had begun to look at life in a very different way. She had a higher standard; she understood and admired her cousin, even though in many ways they were very unlike, and Belle in contrast seemed particularly shallow.

Then, too, to be perfectly honest with herself, she had to admit that she was surprised and not pleased that Arthur Weston should show so much interest in the society of Belle.

"Come, Brenda, are you dreaming? We are ready to go home."

At the sound of her sister's voice Brenda rose quickly, and was ready with a laughing reply to one of her brother-in-law's witticisms.

Brenda was not inclined to be melancholy, and the half-hour of retrospect had been good for her.