with a laugh the Count and Danforth came into the room.
Unseen by Hart Miss Hollingsworth's fan had slipped to the floor. The Count hastened forward and picked it up, bowing extravagantly, and then standing before her for all the world like a terrier dog that demanded to have its head patted. There was no chance for Madge to finish what she was going to say. She glanced up at Newton hopelessly, and just then Mrs. Trevellian called him, a summons he felt compelled to obey.
But before she left, however, Madge found chance to say to him, "Do come and see us; we are stopping at the Inn at Rockcoast."
As Mrs. Carter and Hart drove home that night the kind lady delivered herself of the following little speech:
"You were perfectly right to say what you did, dear boy," giving him a friendly touch on the back of the hand, "and that nasty little snip made me so mad I could have scratched him." Hart did not reply as there was nothing he could think of to say at the moment. What it was that Miss Hollingsworth had intended to speak to him about, he could not imagine, but
