have missed being myself. They shall be out of the common; they shall belong to the New Womanhood; they shall be brought up at least to be the equals of men.”

Now by this time the “something in the city” on which Regina and Alfred had started housekeeping had resolved itself into a very solid and prosperous position, though Alfred Whittaker—make no mistake about it—was not, and was never likely to be, a millionaire, or even a very wealthy man. But he was prosperous in a comfortable, assured, middle-class way. He was ambitious too—I mean socially ambitious—and he liked to feel that his wife was in a good set in the suburb in which they lived. He liked to go to church occasionally, and to have his own seat when he did so. He liked his rector to come to him as an open-handed, clean-living man on whom he could depend for contributions suitable to his style of living. He liked to be able to take his wife to a theatre, and to dine her beforehand, and to give her a bit of supper afterwards. He liked to go to the seaside for August, and to take a trip to Paris at Easter if he was so inclined. And, above all things, Alfred Whittaker liked a good dinner, a pretty, tasteful table, and a neat handmaiden to wait upon him. To do him justice, he never lost his early admiration for Regina. It was wonderful that he had not done so, for with her improved circumstances and her improved position, Regina’s taste in dress had not advanced. Sometimes, on a birthday, or some anniversary kept religiously by them, such as their day of engagement, their wedding day, the day on which they first met, the day on which they moved into the house they occupied—such domestic altars as most of us erect during the course of our lives—he would bring her home a present of a bonnet. He called it a bonnet, but it was generally a hat. Alfred always called it a bonnet nevertheless, and Regina invariably accepted it with blushes of admiration, and wore it with what, in another woman, would have been the courage of a martyr. It was no martyrdom to Regina. I have seen her with all her fair hair turned back from her large face, crowned with a modiste’s edifice which would have proved trying to a lovely girl of eighteen.

“You like my hat?” said Regina, one day to a friend. “Isn’t it lovely? Dear Alfie brought it for me from town. I believe he sent to Paris for it. It has a French name in the crown. Much more extravagant than I should have got for myself—these white feathers won’t wear, and all this lovely sky-blue velvet and these delicate pearl ornaments are far beyond what I should have chosen on my own responsibility. But I can’t help seeing how it becomes me.”

“Why don’t you have a waistcoat of the same color—a front, you know—this part?” asked her friend, making a line from her throat to her belt buckle.

“There is a sameness about the idea,” said Regina, superbly. “I have always flattered myself, Mrs. Marston, that I am one of the few women who can bear to mix her colors. You remember the old story of the young man who asked Sir Joshua Reynolds what he mixed his colors with, and his reply—‘Brains, sir, brains.’”

CHAPTER III

YE DENE

A couple of years went by, and again the circumstances of the Alfred Whittakers were improved. For the old lady whose husband had courted her for seven long years was taken ill and quite suddenly died. Her death affected and upset Regina very much. It happened that she had not been over to her old home for several days, though Regina, although she was such a good wife, had continued to be also an extremely good daughter, and usually contrived to visit the old people at least twice a week. Just at this time, however, some trifling indisposition of little Julia’s had kept her from paying her usual visit to her parents.

“Here is a letter from my father,” she said one morning at breakfast to Alfred. “He seems to think mother is not very well.”

“Oh, poor dear, poor dear. You had better go across and see her.”

“Yes. I should have gone yesterday but for the child not being quite well,” Regina responded.

“Anyway, she’s all right to-day—well enough for you to leave her with nurse. You had better go across and spend the day, and I’ll come round that way and fetch you home in the evening.”

To this arrangement Regina agreed, and she went over to her father’s house as soon as she had concluded arrangements for the children’s meals. She did not, however, return to Fairview—as their house was called—that evening with Alfred. No, she remained under the paternal roof for a few days, and then, when she at length returned to her home and her children, she was accompanied by the old man, who was as a ship without a rudder when he found himself bereft of the wife for whom he had served, even as Jacob served seven years for Rachel.

It was the beginning of the end for old Mr. Brown. He declined absolutely to go back to the house where he had lived so long and so happily, and took up his permanent abode at Fairview. Very soon the better part of the furniture, and certain priceless possessions with which there was no thought of parting, were transferred from the one house to the other, the old domicile was done up and eventually let, and then, as so often happens with old people who have been uprooted from their regular life, Mr. Brown sank into extreme illness.

Poor man, he had never been ill in his life, and he took to it badly. One paralytic stroke succeeded another, and, at last, after a few months of much repining and wearing suffering, he passed quietly away, his last words being that he was going to rejoin his dear wife on the other side.

It was then that the Alfred Whittakers left Fairview.

“I shall never fancy the house again since poor father’s death,” said Regina on the evening of the funeral.

“No, I can quite believe that,” returned Alfred Whittaker, sympathetically. “Well,” he added after a pause, “you will be able to afford a larger house if you want it.”

“I should like a larger garden,” said Regina. “I think children brought up without a garden are generally unhappy little creatures, and ours are getting big enough to enjoy it.”

By that time Julia was nine years old, and Maud, of course, two years older still. Their father and mother therefore gave notice to their landlord, and cast about in their minds for some new and desirable neighborhood which would contain a new and desirable residence.

They decided eventually on purchasing a house in the most artistic suburb of London, that which is known among Londoners as Northampton Park. They were lucky enough to find a house to be sold at a reasonable price in the main road of this quaint little village. It stood well back from the traffic, having a long garden between the gate and the entrance. The gate was rustic and wooden, and was decorated with an art copper plate of irregular shape, on which the name of the house was embossed in quaint letters extremely difficult to read—“Ye Dene.”

“Why,” asked Julia, when she and her sister were taken to see the new domicile, “why do you call our new house Ye Den? Is it a den?”

“Ye