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She laughed gently. “Because he was here, dearie, half an hour ago and told me so. He thought you owed him the dance, and he was a little jealous of Tom.”

“But Tom had asked me–“

“Yes–and so had Mark–“

“Yes–but he had no right–” She was up in arms again: she wouldn’t–she couldn’t–and again an outburst of tears choked her words.

The Little Gray Lady had known Kate’s mother, now dead, and what might have happened but for a timely word–and she knew to her own sorrow what had happened for want of one. Kate and Mark should not repeat that experience if she could help it. She had saved the mother in the old days by just such a word. She would save the daughter in the same way. And the two were much alike–same slight, girlish figure; same blond hair and blue eyes; same expression, and the same impetuous, high-strung temperament. “If that child’s own mother walked in this minute I couldn’t tell ’em apart, they do favor one another so,” old Margaret had told her mistress when she opened the door for the girl, and she was right. Pomford village was full of these hereditary likenesses. Mark Dab-ney, whom all the present trouble was about, was so like his father at his age that his Uncle Harry had picked Mark out on a crowded dock when the lad had visited him in Rio the year before, although he had not seen the boy’s father for twenty years–so strong was the family likeness.

If there was to be a quarrel it must not be between the Dabneys and the Daytons, of all families. There had been suffering enough in the old days.

“Listen, dearie,” she said in her gentle, crooning tone, patting the girl’s cheek as she talked. “A quarrel where there is no love is soon forgotten, but a difference when both love may, if not quickly healed, leave a scar that will last through life.”

“There are as good fish in the sea as were ever caught,” cried the girl in sheer bravado, brushing away her tears.

“Don’t believe it, dearie–and don’t ever say it. That has wrecked more lives than you know. That is what I once knew a girl to say–a girl just about your age–“

“But she found somebody else, and that’s just what I’m going to do. I’m not going to have Mark read me a lecture every time I want to do something he doesn’t like. Didn’t your girl find somebody else?”

“No–never. She is still unmarried.”

“Yes–but it wasn’t her fault, was it?”

“Yes–although she did not know it at the time. She opened a door suddenly and found her lover alone with another girl. The two had stolen off together where they would not be interrupted. He was pleading for his college friend–straightening out just some such foolish quarrel as you have had with Mark–but the girl would not understand; nor did she know the truth until a year afterward. Then it was too late.”

The Little Gray Lady stopped, lifted her hand from the girl’s head, and turned her face toward the now dying fire.

“And what became of him?” asked the girl in a hushed voice, as if she dared not awaken the memory.

“He went away and she has never seen him since.”

For some minutes there was silence, then Kate said in a braver tone:

“And he married somebody else?”

“No.”

“Well, then, she died?”

“No.”

The Littie Lady had not moved, nor had she taken her eyes from the blaze. She seemed to be addressing some invisible body who could hear and understand. The girl felt its influence and a tremor ran through her. The fitful blaze casting weird shadows helped this feeling. At last, with an effort, she asked:

“You say you know them both, Cousin Annie?”

“Yes–he was my dear friend. I was just thinking of him when you came in.”

The charred logs broke into a heap of coals; the blaze flickered and died. But for the lone candle in the corner the room would have been in total darkness.