said to her. Oh, very obstinate she was."

"This is the garden," Guy shouted, as they passed in through the gate.

"Yes, I daresay," Miss Peasey replied ambiguously.

Guy wondered how she would ever be got upstairs to her room.

"This is the hall," he shouted. "Rather unfurnished I'm afraid."

"Oh, yes, I'm quite used to the country," said Miss Peasey.

Guy was now in a state of nervous indecision. Just as he was going to shout to Miss Peasey that the kitchen was through the baize-door, the hostler from the Stag came up to know whether mutton would do instead of beef, and just as he said pork would be better than nothing, the guard arrived with Miss Peasey's tin box and wanted to know where he should put it. The hall seemed to be thronged with people.

"You'd like your boxes upstairs, wouldn't you?" he shouted to the housekeeper.

"Oh, do you want to come upstairs?" she said cheerfully.

"No, your boxes. The kitchen's in here."

He really hustled her into the kitchen and, having got her at last in a well-lighted room, he begged her to sit down and expect her supper. By this time two men who had been summoned by the driver of the omnibus to bring in Guy's books, were staggering and sweating into the hall. However, the confusion relaxed in time; and before the clock struck ten Guy was alone with Miss Peasey and without an audience was managing to make her understand most of what he was saying.

"I'll come down in about half an hour," he told her, "and show you your room."

"It's a long way," said Miss Peasey, when the moment was arrived to conduct her up the winding staircase to her bower in the roof. Guy had calculated that she would miss all the beams, and so from a desire to make the best of the staircase he had not mentioned them. He sighed with relief when she passed into her bedroom, unbumped.

"Oh, quite nice," she pronounced looking round her.

"In the morning, we'll talk over everything," said Guy, and with a hurried good-night he rushed away.

In the hall he attacked with a chisel the first packing-case. One by one familiar volumes winked at him with their gold lettering in the candlelight. He chose Keats to take upstairs and, having read St. Agnes' Eve, stood by the window of his bedroom, poring upon the moonlit valley.

In bed his mind skipped the stress of Miss Peasey's arrival and fled back to the meadows where he had been walking.

"Monica, Margaret...." he began dreamily. It was a pity he had forgotten to find out the name of that sister who was so like a wild rose. Never mind: he would find out to-morrow. And for the second time that day the word lulled him like an opiate.

October

IT was a blowy afternoon early in October, and Pauline was sitting by the window of what at Wychford Rectory was still called the nursery. The persistence of the old name might almost be taken as symbolic of the way in which time had glided by that house unrecognized, for here were Monica, Margaret and Pauline grown up before anyone had thought of changing its name even to schoolroom. And with the old name it had preserved the character childhood had lent it. There was not a chair that did not appear now like the veteran survivor of childish wars and misappropriations, nor any table nor cupboard that did not testify to an affectionate ill-treatment prolonged over many years. On the walls the paper which had once been vivid in its expression of primitive gaiety was now faded: but the pattern of berries, birds and daisies still displayed that eternally unexplored tangle as freshly as once it was displayed for childish fancies of adventure. Pauline had always loved the window-seat, and from here she had always seen before anyone else at the Rectory the first flash of Spring's azure eyes, the first greying of Winter's locks. So, now on this afternoon she could see the bullying Southwest wind thunderous against whatever laggards of Summer still tried to shelter themselves in the Rectory garden. Occasionally a few raindrops seemed to effect a frantic escape from the fierce assault and cling desperately to the window-panes, but since nobody could call it a really wet day Pauline had been protesting all the afternoon against her sisters' unwillingness to go out. Staying indoors was such a surrender to the season.

"We ought to practise that Mendelssohn trio," Monica argued.

"I hate Mendelssohn," Pauline retorted.

"Well, I shall practise the piano part."

"Oh, Monica, it will sound so dreadfully empty," cried Pauline. "Won't it, Margaret?"

"I'm reading Mansfield Park. Don't talk," Margaret murmured. "If I could write like Jane Austen," she went on dreamily, "I should be the happiest person in the world."

"Oh, but you are the happiest person already," said Pauline. "At least you ought to be, if you'd only...."

"You know I hate you to talk about him," Margaret interrupted.

Pauline was silent. It was always a little alarming when Margaret was angry. With Monica one took for granted the disapproval of a fastidious nature, and it was fun to teaze her; but Margaret with her sudden alternations of hardness and sympathy, of being great fun and frightfully intolerant, it was always wiser to propitiate. So Pauline stayed in the window-seat, pondering mournfully the lawn mottled with leaves, and the lily-pond that was being seamed and crinkled by every gust of the wind that skated across the surface. The very high grey wall against which the Japanese quinces spread their peacock-tails of foliage was shutting her out from the world to-day, and Pauline wished it were Summer again so that she could hurry through the little door in the wall and across the paddock to the banks of the Greenrush. In the Rectory punt she would not have had to bother with sisters who would not come out for a walk when they were invited.

The tall trees on either side of the lawn roared in the wind and showered more leaves upon the angry air. What a long time it was to Summer, and for no reason that she could have given herself Pauline began to think about the man who had taken Plashers Mead. Of course it was obvious he would fall in love either with Monica or with Margaret, and really it must be managed somehow that he should choose Monica. Everybody fell in love with Margaret, which was so hard on poor Richard out in India who was much the nicest person in the world and whom Margaret must never give up. Pauline looked at her sister and felt afraid the new tenant of Plashers Mead would fall in love with her, for Margaret was so very adorable with her slim hands and her sombre hair.

"Really almost more like a lily than a girl," thought Pauline. Somehow the comparison reassured her, since it was impossible to think of anyone's rushing to gather a lily without a great deal of hesitation.

"I wish poor Richard would write and tell her she is like a lily, instead of always writing such a lot about the bridge he is building, though I expect it's a very wonderful bridge."

After all, Monica with her glinting evanescence was just as beautiful as Margaret, and even more mysterious; and if she only would not be so frightening to young men, who would not fall in love with her! Pauline wondered vaguely if she could not persuade Margaret to go away for a month, so that the new tenant of Plashers Mead might have had time to fall irremediably in love with Monica before she came back. Richard would certainly be dreadfully worried out in India when he heard of a young man at Plashers Mead, and certainly rather ... yes, certainly in church on Sunday he had appeared rather charming. It was only last Spring that poor Richard had wished he could be living in Plashers Mead himself, and they had had several long discussions which never shed any light upon the problem of how such an ambition would be gratified.

"I expect Monica will be like ice, and