times he had carried her in his arms when a dimpled, crowing baby, or held her hand as the unsteady little feet essayed their first timorous journeys into the great unknown world.

It was not a pleasant dinner to Geraldine. She seldom risked a glance at her future husband, but she could tell by his voice that he was ill at ease, and she knew that he found it difficult to join in the conversation. Once or twice she caught him shooting furtive glances in her direction, and once, stealing a look at him, she saw that he looked miserable. Gradually her

dis

pleasure died-she began to see that it must have been something deeper than annoyance about a broken treasure which had moved him to speak in a manner so unlike himself; and pity awoke, soon merging into tenderness and self-reproach.

The Archdeacon did not fail, when after dinner he found himself sitting apart with Mr. Daubeny, to catechise him in a low voice on the extraordinary irritability which Lord Rotherhame had displayed.

"I can't at all understand it," he said. "In any case, it seems an ill-natured thing to show anger about an accident, and it is particularly unlike Rotherhame to do so. I remember how very kind and nice he was last Christmas when we were dining up here to meet the farmers, and poor Geraldine had a misfortune of the same kind."