Miss Betty clenched her delicate fingers.

She would not remember that white, startled face again! Another face helped her to shut out the recollection: that of the man who had come to mass to meet her yesterday morning, and with whom she had taken a long walk afterward.

He had shown her a quaint old English gardener who lived on the bank of the river, had bought her a bouquet, and she had helped him to select another to send to a sick friend.

How beautiful the flowers were, and how happy he had made the morning for her, with his gayety, his lightness, and his odd wisdom! Was it only yesterday?
Her father's coming had made yesterday a fortnight old.
But the continuously pattering rain and the soft drip-drop from the roof, though as mournful as she chose to find them, began, afterwhile, to weave their somnolent spells, and she slowly drifted from reveries of unhappy sorts, into half-dreams, in which she was still aware she was awake; yet slumber, heavy-eyed, stirring from the curtains beside her with the small night breeze, breathed strange distortions upon familiar things, and drowsy impossibilities moved upon the surface of her thoughts.

Her chin, resting upon her hand, sank gently, until her head almost lay upon her relaxed arms.
"That is mine, Crailey Gray!" She sprang to her feet, immeasurably startled, one hand clutching the back of her chair, the other tremulously pressed to her cheek, convinced that her father had stooped over her and shouted the sentence in her ear.