Studies in Wives

There came the sound of a discreet, embarrassed cough, and Althea Scrope turned quicklyround from the window by which she had been standing still dressed in her outdoor things.She had heard the door open, the unfolding of the tea-table, the setting down of the teatray, but her thoughts had been far away from the old house in Westminster which wasnow her home; her thoughts had been in Newcastle, dwelling for a moment among thefriends of her girlhood, for whom she had been buying Christmas gi...