teristic exaggeration of speech, which he still
pleasantly recognized. It was something
else, vague and indefinite, -- something that
had been unnoticed while Mary was with
them, but had now come between them like
some unknown presence which had taken
the confidante's place. He remained silent,
looking at her half-brightening cheek and
conscious profile. Then he spoke with awk-
ward directness.

"You are changed, Susy, more than in
looks."

"Hush," said the girl in a tragic whisper,
with a warning gesture towards the blandly
unconscious Mary.

"But," returned Clarence wonderingly,
"she's your -- our friend, you know."

"I don't know," said Susy, in a still
deeper tone, "that is -- oh, don't ask me!
But when you're always surrounded by
spies, when you can't say your soul is your
own, you doubt everybody!" There was
such a pretty distress in her violet eyes and
curving eyebrows, that Clarence, albeit
vague as to its origin and particulars, never-
theless possessed himself of the little hand
that was gesticulating dangerously near his
own, and pressed it sympathetically. Per-

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