her first care and chief object in life, should contentedly lose herself in the love and care of another, and both should ignore her right to her?  She answered herself with a pang that this might happen with any one Alice married, and that it would be no worse, at the worst, with Dan Mavering than with another, while her husband remained impartially silent.  Always keeping within the lines to which his wife’s supremacy had driven him, he felt safe there, and was not to be easily coaxed out of them.

Mrs. Pasmer rose and left him, with his perfect acquiescence, and went into her daughter’s room.  She found Alice there, with a pretty evening dress laid out on her bed.  Mrs. Pasmer was very fond of that dress, and at the thought of Alice in it her spirits rose again.

“Oh, are you going, Alice?”

“Why, yes,” answered the girl.  “Didn’t you accept?”

“Why, yes,” Mrs. Pasmer admitted.  “But aren’t you tired?”

“Oh, not in the least.  I feel as fresh as I did this morning.  Don’t you want me to go?”

“Oh yes, certainly, I want you to go—­if you think you’ll enjoy it.”

“Enjoy it?  Why, why shouldn’t I enjoy it, mamma!” What are you thinking about?  It’s going to be the greatest kind of fun.”

“But do you think you ought to look at everything simply as fun?” asked the mother, with unwonted didacticism.

“How everything?  What are you thinking about, mamma?”

“Oh, nothing!  I’m so glad you’re going to wear that dress.”

“Why, of course!  It’s my best.  But what are you driving at, mamma?”

Mrs. Pasmer was really seeking in her daughter that comfort of a distinct volition which she had failed to find in her husband, and she wished to assure herself of it more and more, that she might share with some one the responsibility which he had refused any part in.

“Nothing.  But I’m glad you wish so much to go.”  The girl dropped her hands and stared.  “You must have enjoyed yourself to-day,” she added, as if that were an explanation.

“Of course I enjoyed myself!  But what has that to do with my wanting to go to-night?”

“Oh, nothing.  But I hope, Alice, that there is one thing you have looked fully in the face.”

“What thing?” faltered the girl, and now showed herself unable to confront it by dropping her eyes.

“Well, whatever you may have heard or seen, nobody else is in doubt about it.  What do you suppose has brought Mr. Mavering here!”

“I don’t know.”  The denial not only confessed that she did know, but it informed her mother that all was as yet tacit between the young people.

“Very well, then, I know,” said Mrs. Pasmer; “and there is one thing that you must know before long, Alice.”

“What?” she asked faintly.

“Your own mind,” said her mother.  “I don’t ask you what it is, and I shall wait till you tell me.  Of course I shouldn’t have let him stay here if I had objected—­”