that your sister married him because she wanted to go to England? She is not ambitious, she doesn't care about that sort of thing. She is not"
"Not like me," Elsie interrupted. "If I were only half as good as Ina."
"She married him, I suppose, because she loved him," Hallett went on uneasily.
"Do you think he is the kind of person a girl would fall in love with?" said Elsie.
"Why not? He is very handsome, and he has nice manners."
"And he is horribly selfish, and he is shallow—as shallow as the creek at the Crossing. Mr. Hallett, do you know I am worried about Ina. I don't think somehow she is very happy. But she is much too proud and much too good to own it."
Hallett looked uncomfortable. His memory went back to a certain day not many months back—a day when he had confided to Ina Valliant the love he felt for her sister Elsie, and of which he never could think without a painful twinge, a horrible suspicion that she had once cared for him herself. It was true he had no reason for the suspicion—nothing but a stifled exclamation, a quiver of the voice, a sudden paling. The suspicion had been joyfully lulled to sleep, when a month or so afterwards she had accepted Lord Horace, and when she had told him again, and this time firmly and unfalteringly, that she would do everything in her power to further his suit with Elsie. And she had done everything she could. She had asked him over repeatedly, had been sweet, frank, and sister-like, and had seemed absolutely satisfied. And yet when Elsie said that Ina was not happy, he knew that she was only echoing his own miserable thought.
"Tell me," he said, "why do you fancy that? Isn't he good to her?"
"Oh, yes. He is always making love to her, if you call that being good. It is really quite embarrassing sometimes, and if I were Ina I wouldn't have it. And then he
