“When have you played whist, Cassandra?” he asked in a low voice.  “Do you remember?”

“Is my name Cassandra?”

“Have you forgotten that, too?”

“I remember the rain.”

“It is not October, yet.”

“And the yellow leaves do not stick to the panes.  Would you like to see Helen?”

“Come, play with me, Ben,” called Mrs. Hepburn.

“Ann, try your skill,” I entreated, “and let me off.”

“She can try,” Mrs. Hepburn said sharply.  “Don’t you like games?  I should have said you were by nature a bold gamester.”  She dealt the cards rapidly, and was soon absorbed in the game, though she quarreled with Ann occasionally, and knocked over the candlestick once.  Adelaide played heroically, and was praised, though I knew she hated play.

Two hours passed before we were released.  The fire went out, the candles burnt low, and whatever the contents of the silver porringer, they had long been cold.  When Mrs. Hepburn saw us determined to go, she sent us to the sideboard for some refreshment.  “My caudle is cold,” taking off the cover of the porringer.  “Why, Mari, what is this?” she said, as the woman made a noiseless entrance with a bowl of hot caudle.

“I knew how it would be,” she answered, putting it into the hands of her mistress.

“I am a desperate old rake, you mean, Mari.  There, take your virtue off, you appall me.”

She poured the caudle into small silver tumblers, and gave them to us.  “The Bequest of a Friend” was engraved on them.  Her fingers were like ice, and her head shook with fatigue; but her voice was sprightly and her smile bright.  Ann ate a good deal of sponge cake, and omitted the caudle, but I drank mine to the memory of the donor of the cup.

“You know that sherry, Ben,” and Mrs. Hepburn nodded him toward a decanter.  He put his hand on it, and took it away.  “None to-night,” he said.  Mari came with our shawls, and we hastened away, hearing her shoot the bolt of the door behind us.  Ben drew my arm in his, and the girls walked rapidly before us.  It was a white, hazy night, and the moon was wallowing in clouds.

“Let us walk off the flavor of Hep’s cards,” said Adelaide, “and go to Wolf’s Point.”

“Do you wish to go?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

Ann skipped.  A nocturnal excursion suited her exactly.

“You are not to have the toothache to-morrow, or pretend to be lame,” said Adelaide.

“Not another hiss, Adder. En avant!”

We passed down Norfolk Street, now dark and silent, and reached our house.  A light was burning in a room in the third story, and a window was open.  Desmond sat by it, his arms folded across his chest, smoking, and contemplating some object beyond our view.  Ann derisively apostrophized him, under her breath, while Ben unlocked the court gate and went in after Rash, who came out quietly, and we proceeded.  In looking behind me, I stumbled.