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"I think I understand how you feel," he said "Still, your family can advise you; explain differences; show you the way"

She lifted her thin black eyebrows "Is New York such a labyrinth? I thought it so straight up and down--like Fifth Avenue And with all the cross streets nuuess his faint disapproval of this, and added, with the rare smile that enchanted her whole face: "If you kne I like it for just THAT--the straight-up-and-downness, and the big honest labels on everything!"

He saw his chance "Everything may be labelled--but everybody is not"

"Perhaps I may simplify too much--but you'll warn me if I do" She turned from the fire to look at him "There are only two people here who make me feel as if they understood what I s toof the names, and then, with a quick readjustment, understood, sympathised and pitied So close to the powers of evil she must have lived that she still breathed more freely in their air But since she felt that he understood her also, his business would be to make her see Beaufort as he really ith all he represented--and abhor it

He answered gently: "I understand But just at first don't let go of your old friends' hands: I ott, Mrs Welland, Mrs van der Luyden They like and adhed "Oh, I know--I know! But on condition that they don't hear anything unpleasant Aunt Welland put it in those very words when I tried Does no one want to know the truth here, Mr Archer? The real loneliness is living a all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!" She lifted her hands to her face, and he saw her thin shoulders shaken by a sob

"Mada up and bending over her He dren one of her hands, clasping and chafing it like a child's while hewords; but in a moment she freed herself, and looked up at him et lashes

"Does no one cry here, either? I suppose there's no need to, in heaven," she said, straightening her loosened braids with a laugh, and bending over the tea-kettle It was burnt into his consciousness that he had called her "Ellen"--called her so twice; and that she had not noticed it Far down the inverted telescope he saw the faint white figure of May Welland--in New York