Kilmeny of the Orchard

found that beauty is not always a bless— ing, Kilmeny, and thought it wiser not to let you know you possessed it. Come, let us go back to the orchard now. We mustn’t waste this rare evening in the house. There is going to be a sunset that we shall remember all our lives. The mirror will hang here. It is yours. Don’t look into it too often, though, or Aunt Janet will disapprove. She is afraid it will make you vain.”

Kilmeny gave one of her rare, musical laughs, which Eric never heard without a recurrence of the old wonder that she could laugh so when she could not speak. She blew an airy little kiss at her mir- rored face and turned from it, smiling h‘appily.

On their way to the orchard they met Neil. He went by them with an averted face, but Kilmeny shivered and involun— tarily drew nearer to Eric.

“ I don’t understand Neil at all now,” she wrote nervously. “ He is not nice, as

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