“I just felt like it,” was such a very weak explanation to offer to this grave business-man, for disarranging two years of carefully-laid plans.

I found I was getting to be a little afraid of Richard:  we had been so long apart, and he had grown so much older.

“I hope, at least, you are not going to scold me for it,” I said at last, with a little laugh, feeling that was my best way out of it.  “I shall think you are not glad, to see me.”

“I am glad to see you,” he said, gravely; “and as to scolding, it’s so long since you’ve given me an opportunity, I should not know how to go to work.”

“Do you mean, because I’ve been away so long, or because I’ve been so good?”

Susan, who had been watching her opportunity, now appeared in the dining-room door, and said that dinner was on the table.

Richard asked for Mrs. Throckmorton when we sat down to dinner.  I told him she was dining with her niece. (She had reconsidered the question of the headache, and had gone to hear more news.) The dinner was very nice, and very nicely served; but somehow, Richard did not seem to enjoy it very much, that is, not as I had been in the habit lately of seeing men enjoy their meals.

“I am afraid you are getting like Uncle Leonard, and only care about Wall-street,” I said.  “I shouldn’t wonder if you forgot to order your dinner half the time, and took the same thing for breakfast every morning in the year.”

“That’s just exactly how it is,” he said.  “If Sophie did not come down to my quarters every week or two, and regulate affairs a little, I don’t know where I should be, in the matter of my dinners.”

“How is Sophie?” I said.

“Very well.  I saw her yesterday.  I went to put Charley in College for her.”

“I can’t think of Charley as a young man.”

“Yes, Charley is a strapping fellow, within two inches of my height.”

“Impossible!  And where is Benny?”

“At school here in town.  His mother will not let him go to boarding-school.  He is a nice boy:  I think there’s more in him than Charley.”

“And I hear Kilian is married!”

“Yes.  Kilian is married—­the very day you landed, too.”

“Well,” I said, with a little dash of temper, “I’m very sorry for you all.  I did not think Kilian was going to be so foolish.”

“He thinks he’s very wise, though, all the same,” said Richard, with a smile, which turned into a sigh before he had done speaking.

“I do dislike her so,” I exclaimed, warmly.  “There isn’t an honest or straightforward thing about her.  She is weak, too; her only strength is her suppleness and cunning.”

“I know you never liked her,” said Richard, gravely; “but I hope you’ll try to think better of her now.”

“I hope I shall never have to see her,” I answered, with angry warmth.

Richard was silent, and I was very much ashamed of myself a moment after.  I had meant him to see how much improved I was, and how well disciplined.  This was a pretty exhibition!  I had not spoken so of any one for a year, at least.  I colored with mortification and penitence.  Richard evidently saw it, and felt sorry for me, for he said, most kindly,