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as long as Nicolas lived, she had felt sure that he was there for her.

It would n't make any difference now, she told herself. Maude's husband would be her brother, and all her brothers were dear to her, and would be just as dear whether they married or not. Yet she could not help that sharp rebellion of instinct which behind her reason told her that it would never be the same, that already it was different.

The curious feeling in her heart grew all the time. There was nothing to look forward to any more. She need n't be afraid of having a sick child, and, with the final retreat of that fear, hope darkened in her. There would only be other people's children now, and other people's loves.

Maude's, for instance. Of course Maude would want her back at once. They must get everything ready together, and Maude would want to tell her about Nicolas. Already Maude knew a great deal more about Nicolas than Joy would ever know. Joy had never known Nicolas as a lover, and lovers are always different. They conceal more, perhaps, but they give more. They give all they have; they conceal only what they have not.

A hot wave of color swept over Joy's face as she envisaged Nicolas as a lover. Then, resolutely and without hesitation, she put the Nicolas of her dreams out of her heart forever; the Nicolas of fact remained. He was going to be her brother-in-law.

She made this final transference very swiftly, and as she looked up, she saw Owen Ransome watching her through the roses. He came and sat down beside her without speaking. He had a quality of easy intimacy which was very reassuring in moments of emotion.

Joy said at once, and with no visible effort:

"I have very good news this morning. Nicolas is going to marry my sister Maude. I must go home at once."

"That won't be very good news for Julia," Owen answered lightly-"your going home, I mean. And the other -you are really pleased about it? I remember your sister Maude. She was a little like you, about as like you as a garden flower is to a wild one. You don't mind my calling you a wild one, I hope."

Joy shook her head.

"I know I am untidy," she said

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regretfully; "I always was; it takes so long not to be, and there are always so many other things I want to do instead. Maude manages her time better, of course, and I think the marriage will be a very good thing, because, you see, I love them both so much, they could n't have nicer people for each other."

"Oh, will you?" asked Joy, with a little gasp of relief.

It was quite true she did feel the heat, for when she stood up, her knees shook under her, and it suddenly seemed as if it would have been extraordinarily difficult to tell Julia that Nicolas was going to marry Maude. Joy gave Owen a quick, grateful

Owen hesitated for a moment; then little glance, and he met her eyes with

he said a little dryly:

"Nicolas is n't very imaginative." "No," agreed Joy, truthfully, "I don't think he is; but I don't think people have to be, do you, if they 're kind and straight and like Nicolas, I mean?"

Owen gave an odd little laugh.

"I don't think they have to be at all," he said; "but I think, if they are n't, they are liable to make rather serious mistakes."

“But Maude is n't imaginative, either," Joy explained a little anxiously; "so, you see, he won't be likely to make any bad mistakes about her, will he?"

"Oh, no," agreed Owen; "I should think Maude would be perfectly safe."

Then he stood up in front of Joy as if he wanted a man who was staying in the house, and appeared to be going to approach them, not to see that she was there.

"I think you look as if you felt the heat this morning," he said in a persuasive tone. "Do you know what "Do you know what I'd do if I were you? I should cut along up to the nursery,-it's the coolest room in the house, and I'll send breakfast up to you. It's such a bore having to talk to a lot of people round a table in the morning, particularly when one is n't feeling very fit. Don't come down again till lunch. I'll tell Julia your-your good news."

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and more human, brooded tenderly over the wet, green pastures. The country became moister and milder. Ferns grew in every cranny; the thatched houses had a blurred and weather-beaten homeliness. The people she saw from the train windows were more placid; they moved slowly, with the air of natural things, unsurprised.

Joy had a sense of enormous thankfulness in finding herself at home. Nicolas might fail her, but not the incorruptible shapes and colors of her native Devon. Nobody here would fly about all day long and arrive nowhere.

Maude met her with Fidget at a junction ten miles from Lynton. She seemed part of the freshness and sweetness that was in Joy's heart. She had loved Maude always and accepted

her always; there could be nothing inimical or painful in the round, soft, pink face uplifted for her kiss.

Maude hurried her along to the dog-cart to relieve Fidget's well-known dislike of standing.

"I did n't bring a groom," Maude explained; "I wanted to talk. We can drive in turns if you like. Dick, have you everything in at the back? All right, Hoskins; let her go, please. There, we 're off! It is nice to see you, Joy; nicer than to see anybody, except Nick, of course."

"I'm awfully glad, dear, about Nick," Joy said gently. She had been afraid it would be a little difficult to speak of Nick for the first time; but it had not been difficult, and if it had been, Maude would not have noticed.

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"There," said Maude, with satisfaction, "I knew you would be glad. I told mother so. Mother and father have both been rather awful. I can't tell you what a mercy it is you 're back. They behave as if I'd done something shabby. If they expect people to get engaged sitting round a tea-table under the noses of their parents, they 're very much mistaken. But of course they 're both hopelessly old-fashioned. I wanted to tell you all about it first, so that you could see my point of view. What are you staring at so hard?" "Nothing," said Joy. "Only the hills are just the same. They have the old purple look, as if there was a spirit of darkness moving over them."

"Of course they 're just the same. You'd hardly expect the hills to change just because you 've been to Surrey, would you?" asked Maude with some impatience. "As for purple, you might call them purple if the heather was out, though heather is

really red; but as the heather 's not out, they can't even be called purple. There must be something wrong with your eyes."

This question rapidly settled, Maude returned with relief to her more personal topic.

"My feeling was, you see," she explained, "that I 'd much better make hay while the sun shone. It's no use pretending I 'm as pretty as you are, Joy, and though I love having you at home, I get a good deal more attention while you 're away. There's Nick, for instance. He never looked at me while you were there; but when you were n't, I took care that he should. That's what all the row 's about. I don't see why poor Nick should n't have a wife and children like everybody else just because you won't have him. He was very down in the mouth at first. He used to spend all the time fishing, and never opened his lips. I hurried off after breakfast and fished with him. They made a fuss because I did n't let them know where I was going, and if I had, they 'd have made another fuss because it was n't proper. Being proper is n't the way to get married now, and so I told them; but they only got rattier. They thought I was 'visiting the poor.'

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Joy considered these statements carefully. She could picture very well what happened as far as Nick was concerned. He must have sat taciturn and disgusted on a bank, too polite to get up and go away; but where her imagination broke down was what in particular Maude had done to shake him out of his gloom and turn him into a lover. She knew Nicolas and she knew Maude. What she did n't know was what made the

"Being proper is n't the way to get married now""

farmers' sons stare at Maude when they did n't stare at her, and it was precisely this quality which had drawn Nick out of his gloom.

"We all thought you were never coming back," Maude went on, "you seemed so wrapped up in Julia and her old twins. I told Nick you 'd never marry. You 're just one of the women who don't."

"Am I?" asked Joy. "But-" and then she pulled herself up. What had been on her tongue's tip was that nobody but Nick had ever asked her, and that she had n't meant to go on refusing Nick.

"I've been quite unhappy," pursued Maude in a loud, cheerful voice which bore no community with grief. "You see, I don't mind telling you it was n't particularly easy getting engaged to Nick; he always had that nursery idea about you. But he does want to marry and he always liked me well enough; and now it all depends on you really whether it comes off or not."

"On me?" asked Joy, in astonishment. "But, my dear, it does n't depend on any one now except upon you and Nick."

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"Being en

cism of common sense. gaged is no help, really. Men and women in love don't depend on anything except whether they have the chance or not. The question is, Are you prepared to keep out of my way?"

Joy drew in a wondering breath. Was that, after all, one of the ways in which to look at love?

"I'll keep out of your way, of course," she agreed. "Only, Maude, do you think you'll be happy with a man who only wants you when-when other people are n't in the way?"

"Oh, it's different when you 're married," Maude explained. "You never understand about things like that, but I do. I shall know where I am when I marry Nick. Besides, you can't seriously imagine Nick breaking a vow, can you? When we 're married, we 're married; he 'll see that for himself."

"But he ought to be able to see it now," Joy persisted. "You know I'd never dream of coming between you, but if there's the slightest danger of his turning to me, why did you ask me to come back?"

"Well, there is n't any danger unless you let there be," Maude said frankly. "I wanted you all right. You and I have always done things together, and

no one sews as well as you do. Patch is no use unless she has you to stand over her, and, for another thing, I wanted you to make the parents less sniffy. If you're on my side, everything will be easier all round. I'll take on Nick if you take on everything else."

The purple shadows had grown darker; the dense bloom upon the hills made them seem as if they were inclosing Fidget, the dog-cart, the long, winding ribbon of road, in a fuller tenderness. Joy could feel on her lips the keen and tonic taste of the

sea.

"Very well," she said after a long pause, "I'll take on whatever you like; only you must n't ask me to do anything at all about Nick. What has to be done about him must always be done through you. I want him to feel I 'm just the same as any other sister, not a person who has to manage or explain or even keep out of the way."

"There's only one thing you must do about him yourself," Maude agreed when she had thought this over. "When you first see him be sure and tell him you 're glad. If he believes that, everything will be easier."

Joy forgot about Nick for the rest of the evening. It was almost bewildering to see with her eyes all that she had been seeing only in her heart. Everything had to be visited. She wanted to see every one she knew and then all the things which belonged to those she loved. Certain of them had escaped her memory, and came upon her suddenly with a happy thrill of recognition.

She had forgotten the solid set of her mother's work-basket planted upon the drawing-room table. Her

father had often expostulated upon its presence in a room so sacred to gentility, but Mrs. Featherstone merely replied that she sat where she worked, and worked where she sat, and this strange and inexplicable repository had remained a public landmark.

The dogs bustled to and fro in an ecstasy of proprietary welcome. They were just as anxious as Joy was that nothing should escape her notice. Mr. Featherstone was gratified by Joy's return. She was his favorite child, and he took it as a personal compliment that she should be so pleased to come back.

"Your old father has seen to things while you were away," he said, as if his ministrations had kept the cliffs in their places and carried on the career of waterfalls. It had, as a matter of fact, been her mother who saw to the animals and had taken over, in addition to her own, all her daughter's duties. Mrs. Featherstone said nothing at all on Joy's arrival; she only held her close for a moment and looked at her with eyes in which a very deep love showed for a moment like a warning and then vanished.

Patch cried when Joy rushed up to the nursery to embrace her, but, then, Patch cried very easily. There was no need to seek a reason for her tears.

Maude had Rosemary's room now, and Joy slept alone, but she did not sleep much that first night. The harvest moon, the color of an orange, leaned over the edge of the valley and took all the shadows out of the rock garden. The garden was full of its mysterious, thin light. The flowers around the lawn bathed in it, but though their petals were very plain, it could not give them any color. The sea moved far away and softly, as if

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