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276 But it was bad form—decidedly bad form—and she never seemed to suspect it. My cousin is charming, but unusual and unaccountable."

Which Miss Maywood felt a profound satisfaction in hearing.

It was a month or two before the Chessinghams sailed. Although Mr. Romaine's affairs were so well arranged, the sale of the landed property could not take place at once, and Chessingham concluded to return to England, and come back in a year's time to settle up the small estate. The more he looked into it, the more convinced he was that Mr. Romaine's residuary legatee would get nothing, and that Mr. Romaine knew it; and his object was merely that contrary impulse and the natural perversity and desire to disconcert people which always gave him acute delight.

Colonel Corbin and Letty were sincerely sorry to part from the Chessinghams, but Letty bore the coming privation of Miss Maywood's society with the utmost fortitude. When they went over to say good-by on an early spring afternoon, Letty noticed a peculiarly joyous look on Ethel's fair face. In a little while she proposed a walk in the old