hand scarcely less frank than her husband’s.  Then Clarence lifted his eyes.  He saw before him the woman to whom his childish heart had gone out with the inscrutable longing and adoration of a motherless, homeless, companionless boy; the woman who had absorbed the love of his playmate without sharing it with him; who had showered her protecting and maternal caresses on Susy, a waif like himself, yet had not only left his heart lonely and desolate, but had even added to his childish distrust of himself the thought that he had excited her aversion.  He saw her more beautiful than ever in her restored health, freshness of coloring, and mature roundness of outline.  He was unconsciously touched with a man’s admiration for her without losing his boyish yearnings and half-filial affection; in her new materialistic womanhood his youthful imagination had lifted her to a queen and goddess.  There was all this appeal in his still boyish eyes,—­eyes that had never yet known shame or fear in the expression of their emotions; there was all this in the gesture with which he lifted Mrs. Peyton’s fingers to his lips.  The little group saw in this act only a Spanish courtesy in keeping with his accepted role.  But a thrill of surprise, of embarrassment, of intense gratification passed over her.  For he had not even looked at Susy!

Her relenting was graceful.  She welcomed him with a winning smile.  Then she motioned pleasantly towards Susy.

“But here is an older friend, Mr. Brant, whom you do not seem to recognize,—­Susy, whom you have not seen since she was a child.”

A quick flush rose to Clarence’s cheek.  The group smiled at this evident youthful confession of some boyish admiration.  But Clarence knew that his truthful blood was merely resenting the deceit his lips were sealed from divulging.  He did not dare to glance at Susy; it added to the general amusement that the young girl was obliged to present herself.  But in this interval she had exchanged glances with Mary Rogers, who had rejoined the group, and she knew she was safe.  She smiled with gracious condescension at Clarence; observed, with the patronizing superiority of age and established position, that he had grown, but had not greatly changed, and, it is needless to say, again filled her mother’s heart with joy.  Clarence, still intoxicated with Mrs. Peyton’s kindliness, and, perhaps, still embarrassed by remorse, had not time to remark the girl’s studied attitude.  He shook hands with her cordially, and then, in the quick reaction of youth, accepted with humorous gravity the elaborate introduction to Mary Rogers by Susy, which completed this little comedy.  And if, with a woman’s quickness, Mrs. Peyton detected a certain lingering glance which passed between Mary Rogers and Clarence, and misinterpreted it, it was only a part of that mystification into which these youthful actors are apt to throw their mature audiences.