'Captain Harewood knows,' said Wilmet, coming to the support of the quivering Geraldine, 'that the kinder he is to Cherry the better I like it.'

'Oh, if you do, it is your own concern. I only spoke for your sake.' And Alda marched off, while Wilmet's strong tender arms helped Cherry into her own room, and tended her through one of those gusts, part repentant, part hysterical, which had belonged to her earlier girlhood, though the present was now enhanced by the tumult of insulted maidenliness. Formerly, Wilmet had not treated these attacks on the soft system, but now all her bracing severity was gone. Greatly incensed with Alda, she gave her whole self to sympathy with the victim, showing herself so ineffably sweet and loving, that Cherry felt a thrill of delicious surprise; and as her eye lit on the glittering ring, a little ecstatic cry, still slightly hysterical, welcomed the token.

'O Wilmet, oh! You have! You have—'

'To be sure I have,' answered Wilmet, not in the least heeding what she said, in her anxiety to calm her sister. 'It is all right, if only you will not go and be silly about it.'

The woman was so much more than her words, that their odd simplicity, coming from the grand-looking figure bending over her in tender solicitude, touched Cherry the more, and she threw her arms round her sister's neck, whispering, 'Oh! I am so glad!'

Poor Wilmet! At that moment all her gladness had gone into a weight like lead on her heart, though it only made her more gentle. 'Dear Cherry,' she softly said, 'don't talk of anything to upset you. Will you be good and lie quite still while I take off my things, and then I'll come and dress you? You must not be knocked up to-night.'

'Oh! I had much rather stay here!'

'No indeed! John would be so disappointed. He does like you so much, and I always depend on you to make it pleasant for him. You can't send word that Alda has been scolding you.'

'Oh dear! why can't I behave decently to her the moment we are alone together?'

'Don't begin on that, for pity's sake, or you'll get crying again,' broke out Wilmet, in her natural voice. ''Tis she can't behave properly to anybody—that's all; so don't think any more about anything, like a good child, but lie still till I come back.'