“Ah, but you won’t be here to hear the praise heaped upon me, so what’s the use?”

“No, I shall be gone forever,” said Madeleine, putting on one of her faraway looks. “I never want to come back to Mapleton. I hate it!”

“Why, Miss Van Norman! You want to desert this beautiful old house? Schuyler can never find you a home so comfortable and attractive in every way.”

“I don’t care. I want to go far away from Mapleton to live. We’re going to travel for a year, anyway, but when we do settle down, it will be abroad, I hope.”

“You surprise me. Schuyler didn’t tell me this. We’ve been chums so long, that I usually know of his plans. But, of course, getting married changes all that.”

“You’re a very intimate friend of Mr. Carleton’s, aren’t you?” said Madeleine, with a strange note of wistfulness in her voice.