So Mrs. Armstrong's honeymoon is cut short. Four days later she is again driving up the well-worn avenue of Nutsgrove.

It is a lovely afternoon, and, as Addie peers out of the window, a great gladness fills her heart, for every flower seems to bow its head to her in fragrant welcome, and standing on the doorstep are Pauline and Lottie waving their handkerchiefs, surrounded by half a dozen dogs giving joyous tongue, while the Widow, at a discreet distance inside the porch, is purring melodiously.

"How lovely it all looks!" she cries, hugging the girls rapturously. "How jolly it is to get home again! It seems ages and ages since I left you all. Oh, Tom"—turning to her husband, who is trying to silence the dogs—"don't stop them! They're only telling me how glad they are to have me back—their bark is music."

"You look a little tired," says Pauline, critically.

"We've been traveling since eleven. Oh, how I should like a—"

"Cup of tea. Addie, Addie, I see you retain your old habits!" laughs Pauline. "Come inside; it's all ready in the drawing-room."

"You thoughtful child! Well, Polly, I think this is as near heaven to me as any spot on earth could be," she says a little tremulously, sinking upon the sofa beside the tray. "No let me, dear; I'm not too tired for that. Where's Tom? Where's my husband?"

"Oh, he has disappeared, as any well-behaved husband would in the circumstances! I see you have him in training already, Addie."

"But he might like a cup of tea; he has not had anything since breakfast."

"He'll have a glass of wine or something in the dining-room," Pauline declares lightly. "Don't bother about him, now, but tell us about everything. You've had a real good time of it, haven't you, Addie?"

"It was very nice," she answers, with cautious guardedness—"weather lovely, delicious bathing in the morning, drives in the afternoon, and then the band on the pier at night. I think I told you all about it in my letters."

"Addie," asks Lottie, her great staring eyes fixed on her sister's uneasy face, "what's a honeymoon like? Is it very nice? Do you think I shall enjoy my honeymoon?"

"Oh, Lottie, how can I tell. It depends."

"Depends entirely whether you spend it with Mr. Right, I should say, my dear," puts in Pauline.

"With Mr. Right? I don't understand. Who is Mr. Right, Pauline? I don't know him."

"Well, I suppose Mr. Right is not Mr. Wrong, Lottie. That's all I can tell you about him at present."

"Oh, I see, I see! What a good way of putting it! Addie, is your husband Mr. Ri—"

"Lottie, if you ask me another question until I have finished my tea, a certain brown-paper parcel at the bottom of my trunk addressed to you will go to-morrow to the Children's Hospital at Kelvick," answers Addie desperately.

Lottie's voice is not heard for twenty minutes.

"Now is your time, girls, to tell me everything about every one," Addie says presently, her spirits reviving—"dear Aunt Jo, and the boys?"

"All flourishing. I had a letter this morning from Aunt Jo, inclosing her grandmother's—Lady Susan Something's—famous recipe for catchup promised to you as a wedding-dower, Addie. And Hal likes his school, for a wonder, immensely; he is full of football, and cricket, and the rest of it. It seems to me that the paths to knowledge are made as flowery as possible at Dr. Jellett's."

"And Bob, dear Bob?"

"Oh, Bob's coming on too! But he has to begin at the beginning, you know!"

"Of course, naturally; he couldn't be expected to turn out at once a full-blown clerk."

"No," allows Pauline, with a light laugh, "he couldn't. He is learning to write now—not a soul in the office could read his drafts at first—and after that he'll have to turn his attention to spelling, and then, I believe, to the multiplication table."

"Oh, dear," exclaims Addie, very much taken aback, "is it as bad as that? I'm afraid he'll be rather a nuisance in the office than otherwise."

"Yes, I expect so, for the present. But he'll tell you all about it himself on Sunday."

"Is he coming on Sunday?"—eagerly.

"Of course! Why, you seem to forget that Kelvick is only seven miles off and they shut up shop—I mean, the office closes early on Saturday. I expect we shall have him over here every week—won't it be jolly, Addie?—and Hal too."

"And Hal too?"

"Yes. Jellett's boys are free to return to the bosom of their families, if they like, from Saturday to Monday; and I believe Mr. Armstrong wrote himself to tell him to be sure to come and welcome you home. Didn't he tell you?"

"No."

"Then he meant it as a surprise, I suppose."

"And—and, Addie," puts in Lottie, cautiously recovering voice, "Sunday is my birthday, you know, and I'm going to ask Mr. Armstrong if we may all have tea in the woods as usual. Do you think he'll let us? He is not a strict Sunday-man, is he, Addie? I hope not."

"Sabbatarian, you mean. I don't know. You can tap his theology yourself, Lottie."

"I will the moment he comes in. I'm not a bit afraid of him, Addie. I don't think he's at all the bugbear the boys used to make him out long ago. Don't you remember, before you were mar—"

"Come along, come along," cries Pauline, springing to her feet, "and see everything! Your room has been done up beautifully, Addie, and there are new carpets everywhere. And who d'ye think you have got for your housekeeper, my dear? Why, old Sally herself!"

"Old Sally—mother's old nurse?"

"The same. It seems Aunt Jo recommended her to your husband's patronage on the score of her serf-like fidelity to the family and her many other virtues, her bargaining powers, et cÆtera; and so he appointed her housekeeper. She was in the hall when you came in; but you didn't notice her; and no wonder—I doubt if you'll recognize her even after introduction—she's so grand in her black silk dress and lace cap, with manners, my dear, quite en suite. You can see she means to live up to the tone of your restored establishment, Addie. You could never imagine her skirmishing at the back-door now, with abusive butchers and bakers, or trying to wheedle a pound of tea out of the grocer—oh, no!"

"Addie, Addie, look at the new piano; isn't it grand? 'Annie Laurie,' even without the variations, sounds lovely on it, and when you put down the pedal it's quite like a band."

"Oh, don't bother about the piano, Goggles—plenty of time to see that. Come out and look at your ponies, Addie—such a delightful pair!—and the phaeton to match. Oh, won't it be grand, us three bowling along in it all over the country! The groom says they go at such a pace. Come on, come on; you look half asleep, Addie! What's the matter?"

"Joy," answers Addie, with rather a shrill laugh—"joy tempered by a touch of indigestion. How can I swallow all these good things at a gulp? Let me dispose of the piano before I attack the ponies and old Sally in poult de soie. Give me breathing-time, sisters, I pray you."

Saturday brings the boys, boisterous and jubilant. The five young people spend the balmy September noon poking about all the haunts of the past, paying pilgrimages to the shrine of their childish pleasures and mishaps, hunting up scraps of personal property, moldy relics in outhouses and farm-sheds; and Addie, all the troubles of her short matronhood laid aside, in a plain unflounced skirt—the simplest in her trousseau—thickly booted, trips by their side and enters into all their pleasures with a heart, for the time being, as light as their own.

It is after six o'clock when they return, stained, dusty, disheveled, to prepare for dinner and a decorous greeting of their host.

"I say, Addie," asked Bob incidentally, "isn't it time your skipper was due? Does he stick to the shop all Saturday too?"

"I don't know," she answers, suddenly, sobered by this the first allusion to her absent lord. "This is the first Saturday I've spent here since—since I was married. But he always comes home on other days at six; he ought to be in now. Ah, here is a note from him on the table! I—I wonder what's it about?"

She reads it through quietly, and then says, in a low voice—

"Mr. Armstrong is not returning to dinner this evening. He has business detaining him in Kelvick."

"Not coming back this evening! Good man, good man!"

"More power to you, Tom!"

"Hurrah!" shout the boys in a breath.

Addie colors to the roots of her hair, and walks away slowly without a word.

"You shouldn't, boys," interposes Pauline, with a sage nod of her tumbled head. "Remember, she is his wife now, and may not like your—your expressing yourselves so freely."

"Oh, stuff, Polly! She does not mind a bit—why should she? She'll be one of ourselves to the end of the chapter. I don't see a bit of change in her."

"Don't you?" retorts Pauline. "Well, I do—a great change; and you'll agree with me before long, I think."

"You mean to insinuate that she'd take Armstrong's part against us? Not she! Addie's grit to the backbone."

"Time will reveal who is right."

"There goes the first dinner-bell!" shouts Lottie, rising. "I hope you're in splendid appetite, boys, because we've famous dinners now, I can tell you—regular young dinner-parties every day—soup, entries, joints, such sweets, and such desert!"

"My!" exclaims Hal, smacking his lips and rubbing the middle of his waistcoat vulgarly. "'Times is changed,' as the dogs'-meat man said."

Meantime Addie, with lowering face and trembling hands, was divesting herself of her soiled dress, pained and indignant.

"I won't stand it—I won't! The house is his, not ours; and, if he won't enjoy his own home, we must clear out of it—that's all. Business indeed! I don't believe a word of it; he hadn't more business in Kelvick after hours than I had. He just remained there shut up in that dingy parlor all alone because he thought we should be happier without him—because he felt he'd be in the way in his own house, one too many at his own dinner-table. It's simply carrying things too far, and I won't stand it. I'll tell him so to-morrow, whether he snubs me or not. He can't silence me for a year, he'll find—I'll tell him so to-morrow."

But the morrow does not bring Mr. Armstrong to Nutsgrove. After a long drowsy morning spent shut up in the family-pew, Addie proclaims herself invalided with a racking headache, and unable to take part in the celebration of her sister's birthday. So the family, among whom sympathy with the sick and afflicted is not a distinguishing trait, after vaguely suggesting tea, soda-water, eau-de-Cologne, and the rest, depart grove-ward with a goodly hamper, leaving her alone on a couch in the drawing-room window, limp and feverish with pain.

It is dark before they return in boisterous spirits, full of their adventures, and with countenances smeared with blackberry-juice.

"Oh, Hal, I wish you would not shout so!" pleads Addie. "If you could feel how your voice goes through my head!"

"Beg pardon, I'm sure, Addie; I quite forgot all about your head—at least I thought it was all right by this," Hal answers, in a voice that plainly says, "What a fuss to make about a bit of a headache!"

"Perhaps it would be better for you to go to bed, Addie," Pauline suggests briskly.

So Addie retires and sits by her open window, with wide dry eyes and burning cheeks.

"How selfish they are!" she mutters petulantly. "They never even asked if I was better. Oh, they have fallen off somehow—all of them! They're not quite the same—there's something changed. I—I wonder is the change in them, or in me, or in both? I wish I knew. The last time I had a headache it was so different—so different! I remember it was on the day after that long drive in the sun to the Lover's Leap; and, when I came home, he had the room all darkened, and my head bandaged with a handkerchief steeped in iced eau-de-Cologne, and the band stopped in the hotel garden all the afternoon, and—and everything I could want by my side. And I never even thanked you, Tom; I don't think I felt grateful. What a wretch I was—what a wretch!"