I "DEAR MISS JOEY,-I have not much time to write. can't hardly leave my mistress for ten minutes. Would you please to come back just as soon as you can ? The poor master is gone; as kind a master and as good a man, if you'll excuse me saying it, Miss Joey, of your own cousin, as ever I hope to see, and might have been here with us all this many a year if it had not been for the fire in the house and that little mischief of a Patsy, luring him to his death, as you might say, and not a tear out of her eyes that I have seen. But she is to go back where she came from, along with Mr Gresham. And I have took the liberty of sending for Nurse Evans, which you will well understand, Miss Joey. So no more at present from yours respectfully, “ELIZABETH HAWKINS." As I have no heart to speak of, I did not break down or cry over this letter, although from Hawkins' expressions I fully believed that poor David had been burnt to death in his own house. My things were packed in less than an hour, and mercifully the English papers arrived before I left; so Gertrude brought me the Morning Post,' with a paragraph about the fire at the Red House and David's death from heart-failure. · She tried to be sympathetic, but she was really much annoyed about my going away, and very naturally too. We had arranged to be together till the spring, and she had no one ready at the moment to take my place and keep her company. I never pay attention to any one's crossness, and at the end of the day she saw me off at the station with a huge bunch of violets and her own Thermos flask. People make a great fuss about little journeys. I never have any trouble when I travel alone. But I had a lot to think about, and all of it dis mal-frightfully dismal. David "Mrs Trent will certainly be awake and restless until she has just a sight of dear Miss Courtenay," reproved Nurse Evans. was only a cousin, but he was my nearest relation, and, as a matter of fact, he was the person I liked best of those now living; and his wife, I regret to say, was one of the people I liked least. Still their house had always been open to me, not as a home, for I don't want a home; but I could go there whenever I liked, and David will never know now how many trials I saved him from by skilfully steering Hilda in different directions when she was bent on some of her fads. Steering is not the right word, for Hilda in reality was like some sort of a light craft that won't steer, for want of ballast or something, and I am not a schemer by nature either. The fact is, other people's affairs are not as interesting as one's own, and I have no ambition to manage them. It was dark and dreary enough when I reached the Red House that December evening. How different the hall looked, without any welcoming David at the door! Simpson stood there, looking both cross and wretched, with his sour lips tightly closed. Poor Simpson ! And Nurse Evans appeared almost before I got in, with a radiant smile, and And she led the way swiftly to Hilda's door, which she opened wide. There sat poor Hilda by the fire, looking woebegone enough, but beautifully dressed in a soft black silk dressing-gown, and with black lace falling from her head. "Joey, have you heard it all, or have you heard nothing yet?" she asked in her high excited voice. "Yes, I have heard, poor Hilda," I said, sitting down quietly beside her. "You see what comes of opening one's heart, of trusting, and being betrayed. Who could have believed that a child so so young could have brought such misery on all" "Then was it Patsy who set the house on fire?" I asked. "That will never be known. Who can say how a fire began that broke out in the middle of the night? Probably it was some beam in one of these old chimneys that gradually got charred, and then smouldered and burnt. You know how old this house is, and it often happens in an old house. But that Patsy should have cost David his life! Do you wonder, Joey, that I can't bear the sight of her, the thought of her 66 Well, you were not very fond of the sight of her before 'Oh, yes! I know.” "She was also in a flame against this child, and Mrs Hawkins had to keep her out of her sight. But when the "Yes, he came back just lawyer came, on the day after before But the door was opened again, of course by the hand of Nurse Evans, and smiling as brightly as if this were the happiest of occasions, she quickly ushered me out and returned to Hilda. I ate my solitary supper and went to bed. The room was one I had never slept in before, and Hilda's room was different too. Our old rooms were on the other side of the house, where the fire had been. the funeral, and it turned out In the morning I went and looked at it all, the blackened walls and charred floors, and "The servants one and all the great hole in the roof. seem to have a great dislike They had spread tarpaulin over to that little girl. But, then, this to keep out the rain, and servants aren't always reasonweighted it down with stones able," said nurse, with her rather cleverly. superior air. "The child was It was too early to see Hilda, all anxiety to take her donkey I knew this was sound, and it decided me in my next move, which was to get out the car and drive straight to Lady Winder's house. I liked that woman, young and kind, and no fool. I told her exactly what I wanted, and she wasted no time. 66 "I'll write a note," she said, "and tell Mrs Trent that I'm coming to take her for a drive the first thing after lunch; and you'll see that she is dressed and ready, and gets no time to change her mind. She may not care about it, but I suppose that doesn't matter." "Not a bit," I said. "Thank you very much." And I took myself off immediately, without wasting more than twenty minutes of her morning. Of course, Hilda was most ungrateful, and said she hadn't the least intention of going anywhere with anybody. But by the time Lady Winder arrived, Nurse Evans had got her dressed somehow, I don't know how-by suggestion, I suppose, which is the method of all these medical people. I wish I knew it. No sooner had the car turned out at the gate than Tom Milbanke appeared to me, coming up the steps. "You won't put me out, will you!" he said. "I made Connie bring me along with her, but of course I didn't mean to bother poor Mrs Trent. So I waited for them to start. Where have you been all this time?" I told him about Alassio. I thought it was nice of him to come and see me, and also not to talk about David. I said we'd go for a walk, because everywhere inside the Red House felt so melancholy, and he wanted to bring Dandy with us. "You can't have Dandy," I said, "because Bill Gresham took him away, along with a child and a nurse. Don't you envy him his journey? Let's make for the woods." They are not real woods, but just pleasant strips of woodlands here and there within a mile of the Red House. Day light is short on a December myself. So is "I wonder where Bill is going to "Tom Milbanke said. "To the middle of Vancouver Island, I believe." 66 'It's rather wonderful of him. I shouldn't care for the job he has taken on." "No, and you'd care even less for it if you knew more about it," I told him; but I didn't proceed to enlighten him any further. "Bill has a lot of character," Tom went on. "I was his fag at Eton, but I didn't see him again till we met out shooting that day. He's a determined chap, but inclined sometimes to rush his fences." I laughed at that, for I couldn't help remembering a fence he had refused. What are you laughing at, Joey By the way, do you mind my saying 'Joey'?" half the world, I should say. And I did. She had waited to see me. So we had tea together, for Hilda went straight upstairs after her drive. "I think she is a little better for the fresh air," Connie Winder said. "And it was kind of you to give me the pleasure of taking her out. I hope you'll be able to stay on with her at present. her at present. She has nobody else, it seems, or nobody that she wants." "Oh, I don't know. I'm not sure that I could stick it for long alone with Hilda. But if she has Nurse Evans, she won't mind about anybody else." "Ah, that's just it!" and she spoke quickly. "I don't believe in leaving people too much to nurses at a time like this. I've no doubt this one is an excellent woman-admirable, perhaps. I was able, perhaps. But you know the kind of influence they get over their patients. And Mrs Trent quotes her at every turn, seems to think her opinion conclusive. Perhaps she has very good judgment, but still you would hardly want it to be the deciding factor in your "No, of course not. I was only laughing at your idea of Bill as a determined character. He is obstinate, of course, and he has some very fixed notions, most of them obsolete. But anything will turn him; why, an earwig across his path is enough!' "Oh, rot! You don't like cousin's affairs." Bill, I suppose." 66 Yes, I do. I like him much better than he likes me. When I told him that I was an agnostic, he became simply iced with disapproval." I began to think of the strong brown eyes and quietly decided voice. "What would you advise! I said. "Oh, I'm not advising, "Funny! I'm an agnostic please! I shouldn't dream of |