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 it may be dusty a frock that will not catch the dust may be better."

"It does seem a pity miss to wear such a pretty frock and spoil it when there is no one here to see it; not even your father." This gave Joy an opening of which she quickly availed herself. She had not the least intention of changing the frock or of looking, if she could avoid it, one whit below her best.

"Fie, Eugenie! one doesn't put on frocks to attract. If you think that way, I shall wear it; even if it is to get dusty." The Abigail who was a privileged person answered gravely:

"That's quite true, Miss, exactly as you say it. One doesn't put on nice frocks to attract; and that one is yourself. But all the rest do!" Joy's merry laugh showed the measure of her ebullient happiness.

"Dear me! Eugenie. You are quite an orthoëpist—indeed a precisionist. I shall have to polish up my grammar. However I'll keep on the frock if only in compliment to your sense of terminological exactitude!"

A little after breakfast, when the time for starting on the walk drew nigh, Joy did not feel so elated. Woman-like she was not anxious to begin. It was not that she in any way faltered in her purpose, but merely that she was suffering from the nervousness which comes to those of high strung temperaments in momentous crises. Humming merrily she put on her hat and finished her toilet for her walk. In the sitting room from the shelter of the curtain she looked out of the window, as she tried to think, casually. Her eyes turned towards the lilac bushes, but caught no indication of the tall figure that she sought. Her heart fell. But a second later it leaped almost painfully as she saw Mr. Hardy sitting out openly on the seat, and strange to say—for she had come to identify that seat with the practice—not smoking. He evidently had no present thought of being concealed. Why? The answer to her own question came in a