"No, no, Mrs. Armstrong—impossible. We can't let you in. Manager's orders can't be questioned. No admittance except on business. And you have none, Addie; so be off!"

It is the last dress rehearsal before the final performance; and the company have unanimously elected that it shall take place at Nutsgrove, being a more central position, they argue, and there being more fun to be had there than under the superintendence of old General and Mrs. Hawksby, who have got up the theatricals for the amusement of their eldest son and daughter. So the school-room is converted into a green-room and the drawing-room turned topsy-turvy to represent as nearly as possible the stage-arrangement at New Hall, the Hawksby's place.

"You might very well let me in," grumbles Addie. "What harm will it do for me to see you dressed? It's nonsense!"

"No admittance except on business; critics and reporters rigidly excluded."

The door is shut in her face, she moves away listlessly, then pauses for a moment, looking out at the dappled glory of the spring sky.

"What am I to do with myself all the afternoon?" she mutters languidly. "I feel too lazy for a walk. I'll get Lottie to come for a drive with me! She'll be glad to get off her lessons for once."

But Addie finds that Miss Lottie has taken it upon herself to dispense with her governess for the afternoon, and is busy preparing for a rat-hunt in the grove with Hal and two of his school-friends who are spending the day with him.

"Very sorry, Addie, I can't go for a drive with you; but I wouldn't miss the hunt for anything. Hal said at first that I wasn't to come—wasn't it nasty of him? But Burton Major stood up for me, and they had to give in. I like Burton Major awfully—don't you, Addie?—much better than Wilkins Minor; he's such a nice boy. I hope he'll come over every Saturday."

"He has been over three Saturdays running, Lottie; you can't complain," says Addie.

"No. He says he likes this place awfully, Addie; he'd much rather spend his holidays here than at home. Now I must be off. I wish you were coming with us, too, Addie—'twould be much jollier than driving about by yourself; but I don't think the boys would like it, you know."

"I suppose not, Lottchen. I must only put up with my own society, which is not very exhilarating at the best of times."

How is she to kill the afternoon? Echo answers, "How?" She goes up to her bedroom yawning wearily, and looking around vaguely for inspiration, but none comes.

"Miss Addie, Miss Addie, what are you doing sitting moping there? Why don't you go out for a good brisk walk this lovely afternoon, and get up a bit of an appetite for your dinner, which you want badly enough, I've been noticing for the last week?" says Mrs. Turner, unceremoniously, entering the room about half an hour later, and laying her hand with a motherly gesture on the girl's shoulder, as she reclines in an arm-chair by the open window.

"A walk, Sally? I don't feel equal to it somehow; and I have no one to walk with me; besides, they're all otherwise engaged."

The old woman grunts, and then says abruptly—

"When is your husband coming home, Miss Addie? He's a long time away."

"Yes," she answers, a little sadly, "more than six weeks; and he meant at first, to remain only ten days; then he got that telegram, you know, which obliged him to go to New York. But in his last letter he says he hopes to be home soon now—next week probably."

"I hope he will. To my mind, Miss Addie, there's been a sight too much junketing and racketing going on in this house, and it's time some of it should be put a stop to. It's not agreeing with you, my dear, let me tell you—far from it."

"Sally," says Addie, after a short pause, "I am very like my mother, am I not?"

The question startles the old woman; she looks quickly at her young mistress, and then answers lightly—

"You are and you aren't, my dear. Of course there's a certain likeness—for you're not a bit of a Lefroy; but she was a far prettier woman than you, Miss Addie, far prettier."

"I know that; but the other day I was looking at that picture of her painted ten months before she died, and I thought her very like me—only prettier, of course, as you say."

"I don't agree with you a bit—not a bit," says Mrs. Turner, rising abruptly. "I don't see the least likeness. She was pale and faded and worn like before she died, as why shouldn't she be, after all the troubles she'd gone through, and bearing six children, and all that, poor darling? And you, Miss Addie, are fresh and rosy and young, and all your troubles to come—"

laughs Addie, "Why, Sally, that's pretty! Are you aware of it?"

"The first bit of poetry I ever made in my life, Miss Addie, I give you my word. And now get up, like a dear young lady, and take a turn in the garden, and forget—forget—"

"Forget my mother died of decline before she was thirty! Yes, I will, Sally," she says, with a careless laugh. "I don't think of it often, I assure you."

"What makes you think of it at all?" asks the other sharply.

Addie, for answer, holds up her handkerchief, on which there is a bright red stain.

"That," cries Mrs. Turner, with a loud shrill laugh—"that? Musha, it's little need it takes to put it into your head! That? Why, before I was your age, Miss Addie, when I was a slip of a girl of eighteen, I was mortal bad in that way, and was never a bit the worse of it afterward; and my brother's child—I often told you about Kate McCarthy that married the miller's son—why, she was that bad with blood-spitting that all the doctors said she couldn't live a year; and now she's as strong and as healthy a woman as ye'd find in the County Westmeath, and the mother of twelve children, every one of them as strong as herself! That indeed!"

"—a cheerful little verse, Sally. I must set it to music and sing it to myself whenever I feel in exuberant spirits like now. 'Fresh and rosy and young'"—looking at herself critically in the glass. "Yes, I'm afraid I don't look like dropping into a picturesque decline yet a bit; but then, Sally, if all my troubles are to come, wouldn't it be as well for me to give them the slip—"

"Tut, tut, Miss Addie! Much ye know about it! When you've got your troubles, you won't be anxious to give them the slip; you'll stick to them fast enough, I'll be bound!"

"Stick to my troubles, Sally? You're not talking poetry now, but blank verse, a thing I never could understand."

"Never mind; are ye going out? You understand that, I hope?"

"Oh, yes, you old bother!"

She walks languidly round the old garden, picks herself a bunch of pale May blossoms, and then re-enters the house, and tries the handle of the drawing-room door, hearing sounds of inviting merriment within, but the key is still obdurately turned.

After some minutes of irresolution, she goes into her husband's study opposite, and sinks into a chair at his desk, on which her head droops wearily.

"I do miss you, Tom—I do, I do! I wish you'd come home—I wish you'd come home! I wonder what you would say if I showed you that little red stain on my handkerchief? Would you be startled as Sally was? Would you be sorry or glad, frightened or relieved? It may mean nothing—I dare say it does mean nothing; but still, if it did mean liberty to you, would you take it gladly or painfully? Would you miss me at all as I miss you now? Would you sometimes come here of an evening, when your busy day was done, and think a little of the foolish hot-headed girl you once loved and tried to make happy, but couldn't? Would you think of her kindly, pitifully, tenderly even, and forgive her at last?"

"Bother that idiotic little distich—I can't get it out of my head! 'All my troubles to come'—'all my troubles to come.' A pretty prospect! As if I have not had enough of them already. Much Sally knows! 'All my troubles to come,' and I only twenty-one—twenty-one to-day; and nobody wished me a happy birthday—nobody. It is the first time in twenty-one years that I have been forgotten, wholly, completely forgotten! Sally might have remembered; she helped to bring me into the world. Aunt Jo might have remembered; she was my godmother. Pauline, Bob, Hal—ah, well, they were full of other things! Perhaps it won't be so hard to forget me if I—I go altogether. The first time in twenty-one years! It's an evil augury; it means—means perhaps"—with a shuddering sigh—"I may never see another birthday. Oh, if some one would break the spell! I don't want to die—I don't want to die! I'm too young yet, I'm too young. No matter what my troubles may be, I don't want to die. Mother had a longer time; she was twenty-nine, and I am only twenty-one—twenty-one—"

A loud burst of laughter from the drawing-room comes through the half-open door, and then a few bars of rollicking life stirring music that changes into a rhythmic mournful waltz.

Addie's eyes close, and presently her spirit wanders back to a certain day of sunny girlhood, when they all drank her health in bumpers of raspberry vinegar, and Teddy—bright Teddy Lefroy—knotted a silk handkerchief round her young throat, and, with his lips to her blushing ear, murmured fondly—

"Many happy returns, sweet Cousin Addie!"

She feels the clasp of his warm fingers on her neck, feels his lips brushing her cheek, and slowly opens her eyes to see her husband's swarthy face bending over hers. She does not start or speak a word, but just remains for a moment as she is, looking straight into his grave inquiring eyes, smiling faintly, rosy with sleep.

"Am I welcome?" he asks softly.

"I have missed you," she says—"missed you every day. You are welcome."

She rises heavily, rubs the sleep from her eyes, and puts her hands in his.

"What brings you here alone? Where are the others? Why are you not with them?" he asks, frowningly scrutinizing her face.

"The others are all rehearsing for the theatricals to-morrow night—a dress rehearsal—and they would not let me into the drawing-room. I—I felt sad in my own room, and there was such a smell of roast mutton in the dining room that I came here to rest after my walk. I did not know you would arrive, or I would not have intruded. I will go if I am in the way."

He looks at her again, sharply, earnestly, and notices a glazy brightness about her eyes and a quiver almost of pain about her mouth that tells him his absence has not brought the rest and peace he hoped it would.

"In the way?" he repeats lightly. "Well, well, perhaps you are. Still, if you'd make me a nice hot cup of tea at once, I think I could bear with your company, and condone the intrusion even, for I'm very hungry and thirsty, my dear."

"You would like it really, Tom?" she cries, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks dimpling. "You would not rather have a brandy-and-soda, a sherry-and-seltzer—eh? The Royal Nutshire go in for no other refreshment 'tween meals."

"No, only a cup of tea made by your own hands, Addie. I have tasted no tea like yours in my wanderings."

"You want to put me into a good humor. Well, I have been in a precious temper all the afternoon; I feel better now. Let me look at you. Yes, you have a hungry look somehow, as if you hadn't eaten anything since you left America. You come straight from there, don't you?"

"Yes, I landed at Liverpool five hours ago. So I look hungry? Is it a becoming expression?"

But she is already in quest of the tea-pot.

"I look hungry, hungry," he repeats, with a laugh of pitiful self-contempt; "and well I may, for I have hungered for you, love, love, night and day since I left you—hungered for a glimpse of your fair sweet face, for the sound of your voice—hungered for that careless note of welcome, that frosty smile you gave me just now. You have missed me, you say—ay, missed me as a callous child might miss a—"

"Tom, will you clear that end of the table, please? My arms are so tired."

"And no wonder, my dear girl! Why did you carry that heavy tray? Where are the servants?"

"I did not want any of them to know you had arrived—they would only be fussing and bothering—so I stole everything from the pantry—kettle, spirit-lamp, and all. You have a match—that's right!"

While she busies herself cutting the bread and making the tea, he opens a portmanteau, takes out a letter, and begins writing hurriedly.

"Only a line," he explains apologetically, "in answer to a business letter I found at my office. There—it is dispatched; I'll drop it into the post-bag outside the door. And now to our stealthy tea, my dear."

"Just turn the key in the door, Tom, will you? For, if Pauline, who has the nostrils of a hound, gets the fragrant aroma, she and the whole company will be in on us before you know where you are."

"Which the heavens forbid! There is the sound of as many voices—"

"The sound of seventeen voices—the whole company. They came early this morning, and are remaining to dance to-night. They were here the night before last too; they are here always."

"You have not had opportunity to miss me much then. Robert kept you alive, as I thought he would."

"Oh, yes, he did his best, and the Royal Nutshire helped him! He has four bosom-friends of his own age who are rather heavy in hand, and who belong to the leech tribe. When once they get into the house, you can't get them out. I'm rather sick of 'our fellows,' Tom, 'our training,' 'our mess,' 'our uniform,' et cÆtera. I wonder, if I went in and told them you had just returned from America very bad with yellow-fever, would it rout them before dinner, do you think?"

"I'm afraid not. The quarantine laws would not fit with my appearance here. That's Lottie's voice in the hall now."

"Yes; she has been out rat-hunting with Burton Major and Wilkins Minor—two school friends who are spending the day with Hal."

"By-the-bye, I was nearly forgetting her commission. In fact, at the eleventh hour, even at the Liverpool station, I purchased the 'Turkish delight,' et cÆtera. Here it is. I had to put it in with my letters. Pauline's gloves I nearly made a mess of too. Couldn't remember whether it was six-and-a-quarter or six-and-three-quarters. However, I chose the six and a quarter. Right, eh? That's fortunate. You gave me no message, Addie," he says hesitatingly, taking a case from the breast of his overcoat; "and so—so I was thrown on my own resources to choose you a souvenir of my travels. I hope you will like it; it's Yankee manufacture."

She opens the case, and is unable to repress a cry of keen admiration when her eyes rest on a band of massive gold incrusted with diamonds, her initials sparkling in the center—a bracelet which, to her dazzled eyes, might grace the wrist of a Rothschild.

She looks at it for a moment in silence, and then pushes it back to him sullenly.

"No; I do not like it. Why do you bring me these things? You know I hate jewelry of all kinds; I have told you so often enough."

He takes the ornament from her, closes the case, and pushes it aside, saying quietly:

"I am unfortunate in my selection, after all. I do not ask you to accept the bracelet if you do not like it; only I think you—"

"You are angry with me?"

"No, not exactly angry, but I am a little hurt, I think. I wonder if you received any other birthday-gift quite as ungraciously as you did mine to-day, Adelaide?"

"Any other birthday-gift?" she repeats quickly, jumping to her feet, her face flushing suddenly. "Did you mean that bracelet as a birthday-gift? Tell me—tell me—quick!"

"It matters little what I meant it for now."

"You did then, you did?" she cries impetuously, stammering a little with emotion. "Who—who told you this was my birthday? How did you find out? When did you remember? You—you did not even know my name this time last year. How—how did you know this was my birthday?"

He stares at her in unspeakable surprise for a moment, and then says:

"My dear girl, what is the matter—what has excited you so? Is not this your twenty-first birthday? Yes? What mystery surrounds it? Why do you think it strange I should be aware of the fact?"

"I will tell you," she says hotly, "I will tell you. It startles—it surprises me, because you—you are the only person in the world who has remembered the fact—you, who, as I say, did not know my name was 'Addie' this time last year. I—I was crying here twenty minutes ago because every one had forgotten me for the first time in twenty years; my brothers, my sisters, my old nurse, who always met me on my birthday morning with warm kisses, glad wishes, even little worthless presents manufactured in stealth, did not give me one kind word this year—not one."

"My dear child, why should you mind that? It was only through inadvertence; they were so occupied with these theatricals and other things—"

"I know—I know the omission was not willful; why should it be? But it pained me all the same; it made me feel so sad and blank, that and—and other things, that I—I took it into my head I should never see another birthday unless some one broke the spell. I never thought of you. Give me back my present—quick! It is the loveliest, the sweetest thing I ever saw. I'd rather have a bracelet than anything you could give me. How did you guess my taste—how? How did you know I was dying for a bracelet just like this? Fasten it on my arm, Tom"—baring her pretty wrist eagerly—"so. How it sparkles! Now wish me a happy birthday, please."

He does so, smiling a little sadly.

"Not one, not one, Tom, but ten, twenty, thirty birthdays. Wish them to me with all your heart, your whole heart, Tom, for I feel I do not want to die for ever so long. I do not look like a person likely to die young, do I—do I?"—peering into his face with wistful pathos, her eyes swimming in unshed tears.

"Addie, what has put death into your thoughts to-day, you silly little girl? To-day of all days, when you are supposed to cast aside the fears and frivolities of girlhood and cut your wisdom-teeth."

"Then you do not think I look like a girl who would die young?" she persists, clinging to him.

"I do not know," he answers, banteringly, smoothing away the hair from her hot face. "If a blushing Hebe, for instance, be considered a candidate for the tomb, I may have a prospect of widowhood; but otherwise, Addie, otherwise, no—I cannot say you look or feel like a person who would die young"—touching the white shapely arm that rests on his knee.

She laughs complacently.

"It has not a ghostly feel, has it? Tom, do you think I have a pretty arm? One day I was picking a rose well above my head, and somebody told me I had."

"Who told you?"—sharply.

"Oh, a—well, how can I remember? Some one or other—it was long ago"—rather hurriedly. "What is your opinion? Have I a pretty arm?"

"I have not studied arms. It is a prettier arm than mine."

"You wretch! You will give diamonds and gold, but not one miserable little compliment. By the bye, I have not even thanked you for your diamonds or your good wishes."

"I do not want thanks. Spare me them."

"No, I must make some amends for my ungraciousness. I will not use many words—great gratitude, like great love, is sometimes dumb, I feel. May I thank you as graciously as I can, Tom—may I?"—raising her white arms to his neck, her parted lips to within a few inches of his half-averted face.

He tries to resist, to break the spell; he mutters to himself the words he heard her utter as an incantation, but they sound meaningless, impotent; he puts up his hand mechanically to remove her clasp, but only grasps hers to retain it more firmly there.

"May I?" she says again, her breath fanning his flushed face.

She sees his eyes deepening, smoldering, taking reluctant fire under her glance; she feels his chest heave with a restless struggling sigh, sees his proud head droop an inch nearer hers; in another second she knows victory will be hers; she will have Samson, shorn, at her feet again.

"Addie, Addie, open the door, open the door! What's the matter? The rehearsal's over, and we're going to dance! Open the door—quick!"

With a cry, half of wrath, half of relief, he frees himself and confronts the astonished company—unthanked.