"Dante and I have met before," he explained to his cousin, "as I came through the pastures last evening he approached and saluted me in the same manner you have just witnessed. His volunteered friendship won my heart on the spot. I shall buy him a handsome bell and collar."

Valois flashed him a grateful smile, and a few moments later, in obedience to the breakfast bell, they left the park and walked slowly toward the house.

Near the mammoth fountain, which was playing its crystalline sprays in the bright sunshine, they came suddenly upon Alice Meredith, who was just in the act of pinning in the belt of her simple white flannel gown a knot of daisies, fresh plucked from the dew-lit sward.

She returned Valois' kiss, and then murmured a cheerful" Good morning, Mr. Volney," letting her eyes meet his earnest regard for an instant as she spoke, and then flushing to the roots of her bright hair, which the sunlight touched and glorified as the trio passed up the garden path and disappeared behind a trellis thickly covered with intermingled ivy and clematis vines.

CHAPTER VI

CAUGHT IN THE STORM

Such is life-a changing sky,

sometimes shadow, sometimes bright; Morning dawns all gloriously

And despair shuts in the night.

-Catherine Mitchell.

To estate

one who has always been accustomed to

opens its precincts to people of great wealth and influence, it must be an inconceivably bitter experience to have, almost without a moment's warning, to surrender a position that had ever been supposed to be one that was perfectly secure and steadfast.

But Mrs. Meredith sustained the blow with great fortitule; and by degrees during the brief fortnight passed at Ivendene, her sweet, aristocratic face assumed a look which told that she was learning to accept the harsh decree of Providence with placid resignation; that she had ceased to rebel against the derisive hand. But this look was not repeated in the face of her daughter.

There was a mournfulness in the dark-blue of Alice Meredith's eyes which perpetually hinted

that her efforts to appear happy and interested were enforced. Sighing had become habitual with her, and the long, tremulous breaths seemed to whisper of the latent weight upon her heart, which every day grew heavier.

She always sang when requested, but the voice that made her the legitimate child of music was never heard to vibrate with spontaneous melody, as it had upon that evening when Thayer Volney had stood in the gloaming without watching her through the window.

She had always loved Ivendene with the surrounding intricate foliage and sloping, sunlit lea, over which one's gaze could wander far away to where the breakers dashed their white spray upon the rocky shore. She had always loved the simple gayeties indulged in at this peaceful summer house, and was never wont to weary of them; but now there seemed something lacking in the color of the landscape which but a season ago had impressed her so deeply with its beauty; and the gayeties had all at once become monotonous and tasteless to her.

Some distinguished society people had been invited from the city for the formal house party which it was the custom of the Elwoods to give ere quitting Ivendene for the season.

Mrs. Meredith and Alice declared their intention of returning to Boston ere they should arrive, which idea, however, was so rigidly

opposed on the part of Mrs. Elwood and Valois, and also on the part of the kind-hearted old Colonel himself, that they were compelled to give it up and surrender themselves to thoughts of coming days, which they instinctively knew would be replete with bitter humiliations for them.

So, indeed, they proved.

In those few days of martyrdom, that proud mother and daughter learned how full of hypocrisy and artifice was the world in which, only a fortnight since, they had been courted and worshipped as children of wealth. They perceived the sneering contempt in all the rigid formalities offered them, and accepted the effronteries with smiling decorum, although inwardly, they writhed in bitter resentment and unutterable humiliation. Yet above this there was ever the prevailing sincerity which was lavished in the affection of their hostess and her fair young daughter, and which served them as a buoy serves a man who cannot swim.

They anchored their wounded spirits upon this, and so kept themselves above water during those long, trial days which at last came to an end.

Mrs. Elwood watched the brougham drive out of the gates of Ivendene, which was bearing her last guests away to the station, and then turned away with the incredulous words upon her lips:

"Who would have dreamed there existed such

hypocrisy in the world! It is inconceivable !"

That night Mrs. Meredith fell asleep with her face pressed against a tear-wet pillow. Alice had stolen to her room after she had retired and, kneeling by the bedside, had whispered :

"Mother, I am glad we have been shut out from that world of falsity and shallow-heartedness. I had rather be a fisherwoman like those we saw at Nahant the other day, picking up clams in the surf, than to become such a form of deception as those women whom we have always believed in until now. Adversity is a kind friend after all, for she leads us up to that mount of truth and light from which we can view life in all its uncovered reality."

So the tears which Mrs. Meredith had shed were those of thankfulness to Him who had given her beloved child intuition to divine that which she herself had been blinded to when young, and a purity of soul that revolted against deception.

Seldom had Thayer Volney been alone in the presence of Alice during the fortnight they had spent together at Ivendene, and he was certain that the young girl purpose'y avoided him; for whenever they had been thrown in each other's society, Alice had found some pretext for a hurried withdrawal from his presence, and, unless Valois composed a third party she would not permit herself to remain for the briefest interval under the spell of his dark, magnetic eyes which