discussion was not very uncommon between the mother and daughter; they were much together, owing to Mrs Lermont’s increasing lameness and Maida’s chronic delicacy, and often alone. And they understood each other well, though in many ways they were very different.

“Perhaps you are right, mother,” the daughter said, “Perhaps I do work up people in my imagination till they grow quite unlike what they really are. People, some especially, interest me so,” she went on, thoughtfully. “I feel very grateful to my fellow-creatures; thinking them over helps to make my life much pleasanter than it might otherwise be.”

Mrs Lermont glanced at her half anxiously. It was so seldom that Maida alluded to the restrictions and deprivations of her lot.

“I am sure, dear, you always think of them in the kindest possible way; you may be critical, but you are certainly not cynical,” and she glanced at her daughter affectionately. Mrs Lermont was an affectionate mother to all her children, but her daughter Maida had the power of drawing out a strain of tenderness of which one would scarcely have suspected the existence in her. Miss Lermont smiled back.

“I am glad you think so, mother,” she said; “all the same, I often feel I should be on my guard lest the interest of dissecting others’ characters should lead me too far. As for Philippa, I shall be only too glad, poor child, if her life is a happy and uncomplicated one.” And the subject for the time was dropped, though Maida’s memory, above all where her affections were concerned, was curiously retentive. From that time her young cousin had her own place in what Maida sometimes to herself called her invisible picture-gallery; there were many touches still wanting to the completion of the portrait, some which no one could have predicted.

Philippa herself, tranquilly seated in the corner of her second-class railway compartment, would have been not a little astonished could she have overheard what her cousins were saying about her—herself was not, as a rule, the subject of her cogitations.

It was a long journey to Marlby, the nearest station to Philippa’s home; long, comparatively speaking, that is to say, for the length of journeys, like the measure of many other things, is but a relative matter, and the young girl had travelled so little in her short life that the eight hours across country seemed to her no trifling matter. She enjoyed it thoroughly; even the waitings at junctions and changing of trains, at which many would have murmured, added to the pleasurable excitement of the whole. There was something exhilarating in the mere fact of passing through places whose names were unfamiliar to her.

“What a pretty name!” she said to herself, at one station where some minutes had to be spent for no apparent reason, as nobody got out or got in, and neither express nor luggage train passing by solved the enigma—”‘Merle-in-the-Wold!’ and what a pretty country it seems about here! I don’t remember noticing it on my way coming. I wonder how long it will be before I pass by here again. They won’t be so afraid about me at home after this, when they see how well I have managed—catching trains and everything quite rightly, and not losing my luggage, or anything stupid like that—though, I suppose, I’d better not shout till I’m out of the wood. I should feel rather small if my things don’t turn up at Marlby.”

But these misgivings did not trouble her long; she was absorbed by the picturesque beauty of the country around, which was shown to its greatest advantage by the lovely autumn weather.

“There is really some advantage in living in an uninteresting part of the world as we do,” Philippa went on thinking; “it makes one doubly enjoy scenery like this. I wonder I never heard of it before. I wonder what those turrets can be over there among the trees; they must belong to some beautiful old house. Dear me, what delightful lives some fortunate people must have, though, I suppose, there are often drawbacks—for instance, in Maida Lermont’s case! I wouldn’t change with her for anything, except that she’s so very, very good. It is so nice to be strong, and able to enjoy any lucky chance which comes in one’s way, like this visit to Dorriford. I shall have to be content now with quiet home life for a good while.”

But home, quiet and monotonous as it might be, was essentially home to Philippa. Her spirits rose still higher as she knew herself to be nearing it, and she had never looked brighter than when she sprang out of the lumbering old fly which had brought her and her belongings from Marlby station, and eagerly questioned the servant at the door as to which members of the family were in.

“Mamma is, you say, but not my father—and Mrs Headfort and the children? Everybody is quite well, I suppose?”

“All quite well, Miss Philippa,” replied Dorcas, the elderly handmaid who had once been Philippa’s nurse. “Your mamma and Miss Evelyn—Mrs Headfort, I should say—are in the drawing-room. I don’t think they expected you quite so soon. My master has gone to meet the young gentlemen on their way back from school. I don’t suppose they’ll be in for some time.”

“All the better,” said Philippa, “so far as the boys are concerned, that is to say. I do want to have a good talk with mamma and Evey first.”

“Yes, of course, Miss Philippa, you must have plenty to tell, and something to hear too, maybe;” this rather mysteriously.

“What can you mean?” said Philippa, stopping short on her way; but Dorcas only shook her head and smiled.

“Philippa already! How nice!” were the words that greeted her as she opened the drawing-room door. “Darling, how well you’re looking!”—and—“Evey, dear, ring for tea at once, the poor child must be famishing,” from her mother.

Certainly there could be no two opinions as to the warmth of the young girl’s welcome home.

“It is nice to be back again,” said Philippa, throwing herself on to a low chair beside her mother, “and with such lots to tell you. They have all been so kind, and I have so enjoyed it; but, by-the-by, before I begin, what does Dorcas mean by her mysterious hints about some news I had to hear?”

“Dorcas is an old goose,” said Mrs Headfort, “and,” (Page 21 missing) tively. “And as if I didn’t realise only too fully how terrible it is, Duke writes pages and pages of warnings and instructions and directions, and heaven knows what! down to the minutest detail. If he had known more about the fashions, he would have told me exactly how my dresses were to be made, and my hair done—”

“He might have saved himself the trouble as to the last item,” said Philippa, consolingly. “You never have been and never will be able to do your hair decently, Evelyn.”

Mrs Headfort’s pretty face grew still more dejected in expression.

“I really don’t think you need be such a Job’s comforter, Philippa,” she said, reproachfully, “just when mamma and I have been longing so for you to come home. Duke didn’t write about my hair, so you needn’t talk about it. What he did write was bad enough, and the worst of all is—”

“What?” said Philippa.