“I beg your pardon for interrupting you, mama.  I thought you were alone,” came a voice from the doorway.  “How do you do, Mrs. Ferguson?”

“Oh!” ejaculated both ladies, as they looked up, to find standing in the doorway a handsome girl, with clear-cut patrician features, and an erect carriage which gave her an air of marked distinction.

“I only stopped to ask about the errand you asked me to do when I went out,” explained the girl, quietly, as the two women hunted for something to say.

“Oh.  Yes.  Thank you for remembering, darling,” stammered Mrs. Durant, finding her voice at last.  “Won’t you please order a bunch of something sent to Miss Porter—­and—­and—­I’ll be very much obliged if you’ll attend to it, Constance, my dear.”

The girl merely nodded her head as she disappeared, but neither woman spoke till the front door was heard to close, when Mrs. Durant exclaimed, “How long had she been standing there?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hope she didn’t hear!”

“I don’t think she could have, or she would have shown it more,”

“That doesn’t mean anything.  She never shows anything outwardly.  And really, though I wouldn’t purposely have said it to her, I’m not sure that I hope she didn’t hear it—­for—­well, I do wish some one would give her just such advice.”

“My dear, it isn’t a case for advice; it’s a case for match-making,” reiterated Mrs. Ferguson, as she once more held out her hand.

Meanwhile Miss Durant thoughtfully went down the steps to her carriage, so abstracted from what she was doing that after the footman tucked the fur robe about her feet, he stood waiting for his orders; and finally, realising his mistress’s unconsciousness, touched his hat and asked,—­

“Where to, Miss Constance?”

With a slight start the girl came back from her meditations, and, after a moment’s hesitation, gave a direction.  Then, as the man mounted to his seat and the brougham started, the girl’s face, which had hitherto been pale, suddenly flushed, and she leaned back in the carriage, so that no one should see her wipe her eyes with her handkerchief.

“I do wish,” she murmured, with a slight break in her voice, “that at least mama wouldn’t talk about it to outsiders.  I—­I’d marry to-morrow, just to escape it all—­if—­if—­a loveless marriage wasn’t even worse.”  The girl shivered slightly, and laid her head against the cushioned side, as if weary.

She was still so busy with her thoughts that she failed to notice when the brougham stopped at the florist’s, and once more was only recalled to concrete concerns by the footman opening the door.  The ordering of some flowers for a débutante evidently steadied her and allowed her to regain self-control, for she drove in succession to the jeweller’s to select a wedding gift, and to the dressmaker’s for a fitting, at each place giving the closest attention to the matter in hand.  These nominal duties, but