little shoes stretched out at full length. I know those shoes! By special request I rubbed the soles on the gravel paths, so that they might not look too newly married. Quite certainly Kathie will be throwing an occasional thought to the girl she left behind her, a “poor old Evelyn!” with a dim, pitiful little ache at the thought of my barren lot. Quite certainly, too, for one moment when she remembers, there will be twenty when she forgets. Quite right, of course! Quite natural, and wife-like, and just as it should be, and only a selfish, ungenerous wretch could wish it to be otherwise. All the same—

I wrenched myself out of the aunts’ clutches yesterday morning on the plea of going home to tidy up. Though the wedding took place from their house, all the preparatory muddle happened here, and it will take days and days to go through Kathie’s rooms alone, and decide what to keep, what to give away, and what to burn outright.

The drawers were littered with pretty rubbish—oddments of ribbon, old gloves, crumpled flowers, and the like. It goes against the principles of any right-minded female to give away tawdry fineries, and yet—and yet—Could I bear to destroy them? To see those little white gloves shrivel up in the flames, the high heeled little slippers crumple and split? It would seem like making a bonfire of Kathie herself.

I tidied, and arranged, and packed into fresh parcels, working at fever heat with my hands, while all the time the voice in my brain kept repeating, “Now, Evelyn, what are you going to do? What are you going to do, my dear, with your blank new life?”

To leave the old home and start afresh—that is as far as I have got so far—but I must make up my mind, and quickly too, for this house is too full of memories to be a healthy shelter. Kathie and I have lived here ever since we left school, first with father, then after his death with an old governess-companion. Since her marriage a year ago we have been alone, luxuriating in our freedom, and soothing the protestations of aunts by constant promises to look out for a successor. Then Kathie met Basil Anderson, and no one was cruel enough to grudge us our last months together.

Now I am alone, with no one in the world to consider beside myself, with my own home to make, my own work to find, my own happiness to discover. Does it make it better or worse, I wonder, that I am rich, and the question of money does not enter in? Ninety-nine people out of a hundred would answer at once that it is better, but I’m not so sure. If I had a tiny income, just enough to ensure me from absolute want, hard regular work would be necessary, and might be good for body and brain. I want work! I must have it if I am to keep going, but the mischief is, I have never been taught to be useful, and I have no idea what I could do! I can drive a car. I can ride anything that goes on four legs. I can dance, and skate, and arrange flowers with taste. I can re-trim a hat, and at a pinch make a whole blouse. I can order a nice meal, and grumble when it is spoiled. I can strum on the piano and paint Christmas cards. I can entertain a house-party of big-wigs.

I have also (it seems a queer thing to say!) a kind of genius for simply—being kind! The poor people in the village call me “the kind one,” to distinguish me from Kathie, who, poor lamb! never did an unkind thing in her life. But she didn’t always understand, that was the difference. When they did wrong she was shocked and estranged, while I felt dreadfully, dreadfully sorry, and more anxious than ever to help them again. Kathie used to think me too mild, but I don’t know! The consequences of sin are so terrible in themselves, that I always long to throw in a lot of help with the blame. The people about here seem to know this by instinct, for they come to me in their troubles and anxieties and—shames, poor souls! and open their hearts as they do to nobody else. “Sure then, most people are kind in patches,” an old woman said to me one day; “’tis yourself that is kind all round!”

I don’t know that it’s much credit to do what is no effort, and certainly if I could choose a rôle in life it would be to play the part of a good fairy, comforting people, cheering them up, helping them over stiles, springing delightful little surprises upon them, just where the road looked blocked! The trouble is that I’ve no gift for organised charity. I have a pretty middling strong will of my own (“pigheadedness” Aunt Emmeline calls it!) and committees drive me daft. They may be useful things in their way, but it’s not my way. I want to get to work on my own, and not to sit talk, talk, talking over every miserable, piffling little detail. No! If I play fairy, I must at least be free to wave my own wand, and to find my own niche where I can wave it to the best advantage. The great, all-absorbing question is—where and how to begin?

Advertisements are the orthodox refuge of the perplexed. Suppose, for the moment, that I advertised, stating my needs and qualifications in the ordinary shilling-a-line fashion. It would run something like this:—

“Lady. Young. Healthy. Good appearance. Seeks occupation for a loving heart. Town or country. Travel if required.”

It sounds like an extract from a matrimonial paper. I wonder how many, or, to speak more accurately, how few bachelors would exhibit any anxiety to occupy the vacancy. I might add “private means,” and then the answers would arrive in sacks, I should have the offer of a hundred husbands, and a dozen kind homes, with hot and cold water, cheerful society, a post office within a mile, and a golf course in the neighbourhood. A hundred mothers of families would welcome me to their bosoms, and a hundred spinsters would propose the grand tour and intellectual companionship; but I want to be loved for myself, and in return to love, and to help—

I am not thinking of marriage. Some day I shall probably fall in love, like everyone else, and be prepared to go off to the Ural Mountains or Kamtschatka, or any other remote spot, for the privilege of accompanying my Jock. I shall probably be just as mad, and deluded, and happy, and ridiculous as any other girl, when my turn comes; but it hasn’t come yet, and I’m not going to sit still and twiddle my thumbs pending its approach. I’m in no hurry! It is in my mind that I should prefer a few preliminary independent years.

Aunt Eliza drove over this afternoon to “cheer me up”. She means well, but her cheering capacities are not great. Her mode of attack is first to enlarge on every possible ill, and reduce one to a state of collapse from pure self-pity, and then to proceed to waft the same troubles aside with a casual flick of the hand. She sat down beside me, stroked my hand (I hate being pawed!) and set plaintively to work.

“Poor dear! I know you are feeling desolate. It’s so hard for you, isn’t it, dear, having no other brother or sister? Makes it all the harder, doesn’t it, dear! And Kathie leant on you so! You must feel that your work is gone. Stranded! That’s the feeling, isn’t it? I do understand. But”—(sudden change to major key)—“she is happy! You must forget yourself in her joy!”

I said, “Oh! yes,” and removed my hand under pretence of feeling for a handkerchief. Her face lengthened again, and she drew a deep sigh.

(Minor.) “I always feel it is the last straw for a woman when she has to give up her home in a time of trouble. A home is a refuge, and you have made The Clough so charming. It will be a wrench to move all the dear old furniture, and to leave the garden where you and Kathie were so happy together. Wherever you look, poor dear, you must feel a fresh stab. Associations!—so precious, aren’t they, to a woman’s heart? (Major.) But material things are of small value, after all, dear. We learn that as we grow old! A true woman can make a home wherever