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Other guests arrived before Mrs Cable -room She had taken more time than usual with her toilet It was i on her perceptibly The face that looked back into her eyes fro-table was not the fresh, warm one that had needed so little care a few short months before There was a heaviness about the eyes and there were strange, persistent lines gathering under the soft, white tissues of her skin But when she at last stepped into the presence of her guests, with aies for her tardiness, she was the picture of life and nerve So much for the excellent resources of her will

Banse in the background until the others had passed

"I'lad you could come Indeed, it's a pleasure to---" She spoke clearly and distinctly as she extended her hand; but as she looked squarely into his eyes she thought hiliest man she ever had seen Every other wo to herself that Jaly handsome

"Most pleasures coallantly, and even Graydon Bansemer wished that he could have said it

"Your father is a perfect dear," Jane said to him, softly "It was not what he said just then that pleased ood fellow, Jane I'lad you admire him"

"You are not a bit like him," she said reflectively

"Thanks," he exclai"

"But you are a different sort of a good fellow, that's what I mean Don't be absurd," she cried in soh I don't remember her at all"

"Oh, how terrible it must be never to have known one's mother," said she tenderly

"Or one's father," added Ja at that instant with Mrs Cable "Please include the father, Miss Cable," he pleaded withto Mrs Cable, who had stopped beside hi of mothers, will defend the fathers, won't you?"

"With all my heart," she answered so steadily that he was surprised

"I will include the father, Mr Banseuaranteed that he possibly could be as nice and dear as one's mother In that case, I think it would be--oh, dreadfully terrible never to have known him"

"And to think, Miss Cable, of the unfortunates who have known neither father nor mother," said Bansemer, senior, slowly, relentlessly "How much they have missed of life and love!"