Her labors completed, she turned herself about before the pier-glass, mentally pronounced her attire faultless from the knot of ribbon in her hair to the dainty boots on the shapely little feet, and her cheek flushed with pleasure as the mirror told her that face and form were even prettier than the dress and ornaments that formed a fit setting to their charms.

The hour was almost up.  She glanced from the window to see if he were yet in sight.

He was not, but she wanted a walk, so would go to meet him; he would dismount at sight of her, and they would walk home together.

Tying on a garden hat and throwing a light shawl about her shoulders, she hastened down-stairs and out into the grounds.

She had walked more than half the length of the avenue, when she saw the family carriage turning in at the gates, Edward riding beside it.

The flutter of a veil from its window caused her to change her plans.  He was not returning alone, but bringing lady visitors; therefore, she would not go to meet him.

And no one had told her visitors were expected.  She felt aggrieved, and somehow, unreasonable as she knew it to be, she was angry at Edward’s look of interest and pleasure as he leaned from the saddle in a listening attitude, as if hearkening to the talk of some one within the carriage.

Zoe had stepped behind a clump of bushes, whose leafy screen hid her from the view of the approaching party, while through its interstices she could see them very plainly.

As they drew nearer, she saw that the carriage contained two young, pretty, ladylike girls, one of whom was talking to Edward with much animation and earnestness, he listening with evident interest and amusement.

When the carriage had passed her, Zoe glided away through the shrubbery, gained the house by a circuitous route and a side entrance, and her own rooms by a back stairway.

She fully expected to find Edward there, but he was not.

“Where can he be?” she asked herself half aloud, then sat down and waited for him—­not very patiently.

After some little time, which, to Zoe’s impatience, seemed very long, she heard the opening and shutting of a door, then the voices of Mr. Dinsmore, his daughter, and Edward in conversation, as they came down the hall together.

“He has been to see his mother first,” she pouted.  “I think a man ought always to put his wife first.”  And turning her back to the door, she took up a book and made a pretence of being deeply interested in its perusal.

Edward’s step, however, passed on into the dressing-room, and as she heard him moving about there, she grew more and more vexed.  It seemed that he was in no great haste to greet her after this their first day’s separation; he could put it off, not only for a visit to his mother in her private apartments, but also until he had gone through the somewhat lengthened duties of the toilet.