ner of their child's return to them, was not very unnatural, perhaps. Certainly it seemed to me one of the occasions on which silence is particularly golden; but it didn't seem so to Hilda.

Our views on most subjects diverged, and we were used to that. But I was really sorry to see her so extremely worried over this refusal of David's legacy to the child. I wished she would talk to some sensible person about it, like Connie Winder, who might have persuaded her that it was not a desperate tragedy-yet. But she had given up going to Winderleigh, and I had to go by myself.

One very pleasant morning, on a non-hunting day, Connie and I and Tom Milbanke had been practising strokes on the golf course, and I lunched with them afterwards. It was cheerful in Connie's little morningroom upstairs, where we smoked cigarettes after lunch, and I always felt at home with that pair. I was in a mood to talk, and the fact is you can't get much help from people unless they understand the situation. So I let them understand it quite clearly. I really wasn't giving Hilda away, for what they had heard from outside put her in a much worse light than what I told them.

"It seems to me that Mr Trent was quite right in leaving that provision for the child he had adopted, and it seems to me that her father was equally right in refusing it.

There is nothing more to be done that I can see," Connie remarked.

"Would it relieve Mrs Trent's mind," Tom inquired, "if you put it to her that no matter how firmly poor Harding refuses the money now, his daughter, under the guidance of her highly practical mother, is pretty sure to put in a successful claim for a large amount by the time she is twentyone? "

"I believe Mr Hunter told Hilda something of that kind, and I should think it was highly likely to happen. But no event at such a distance of time can be made clear or consoling to to Hilda. She lives entirely in the present, and her violent dislike for Patsy complicates her feelings in a hopeless way."

"Is it true that the child set the house on fire, and then hid herself purposely away!" Connie asked.

"No, quite untrue. But the servants got up that story, for they all disliked her. Simpson told me the real facts, that the fire was caused by candles left burning too near to some light muslin curtains which must have blown into the flame and blazed up. But as for Patsy, she wasn't hiding at all. She had gone to save her donkey, which wasn't in the smallest danger, and Bill Gresham found her trying to drag it out of the stable."

"Just what the boys would have done! Dear little girl! said Connie warmly.

"I found her a trial to live

with, that dear little girl," I admitted.

"Oh, she's the daughter of a half-breed, I'm practically certain," Tom declared. "See her riding, with her ankles working, and heels kicking all the time, exactly the way a Red Indian rides. And then the dark immovable face of the creature-oh, I made up my mind about her that day the children were all riding donkey-races over at the Red House. Do you remember, Joey, I told you then?"

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'Yes, I remember, but it makes no difference now. Now that she has gone, I mean. At the time it rather amused me to think there was Red Indian blood in her veins, and to watch her queer ways, so cold and suspicious. She was especially suspicious of Hilda, because Hilda was most affectionate to her."

"A weakness that she seems to have overcome," Connie observed drily. "I'm sorry for the child."

I did not tell them that it was David's being "so sorry for the child" that had turned Hilda utterly against her. I didn't want to repel Connie from Hilda, and Connie was rather lofty-minded.

may mean, and that it can't be done by writing."

"Very true," said Tom judicially.

But I don't see how it can be done at all," Connie objected, wrinkling her brows.

“Nor do I. And I'm sure that the sooner the whole unfortunate business is buried and forgotten, the better it would be for the peace of the world," I agreed. "But you can't control emotional people with argument. So I suppose it will end in my going along with her."

"What a rotten idea!" and "Perfectly right too!" said Tom and Connie in the same breath.

At this point the two boys burst in upon us, to inform their mother that she had forgotten her promise to exercise King Cole after lunch, and to take them along with her on their donkeys, Punch and Judy.

Connie rose obediently; she was a perfect slave to Bertie and Ted. But Tom Milbanke sat on, and steadily assailed me with arguments, as he called them, against the rotten idea.

"I thought you were going to hunt, and I was on the point of buying that grey cob of Joan Oliphant's for you. He's too small for her, but he's well up to your weight, and a perfect fencer. Joan said you had better have a day on him to try how you liked him. Quite sensible of her; and there's a Meet on Tuesday at Hinton Cross.'

I didn't refuse to try the grey cob; in fact, I wanted

him, and the more I thought of hunting the less attractive seemed the prospect of Canada, all snowy, and savage, and solitary.

That evening I got Hilda to sit downstairs with me after dinner. We sat in David's smoking-room, and it was a great step for her; to believe that she could even enter the place seemed impossible to her a week before. I took care to have her patience cards at hand, and she played her interminable games quite steadily, without talking.

When she had gone upstairs, I moved David's chair back to its accustomed place near the fire. Then I sat down on the hearth-rug, as I had often sat with him, and tried to think him back into his chair there, and tried to see his face. The room was very still, there was only a little ticking noise from the fire, and I concentrated all the will-power I possessed on wishing to see

David, to get a word from hím. This I continued to do for a whole hour, and there was absolutely no response. At the end of the hour I knew that I was alone in the room, quite alone. Well, I was satisfied. I have never had the smallest belief in the survival of what people choose to call their souls after death. And this experiment was enough for me; it only left me very tired and rather cold, though I was sitting on the rug close to the fire.

Simpson came in to put out the lights, and drew back when he saw me.

"I thought you had gone upstairs, Miss Josephine," he said. I got up to go, and moved to the door. He crossed the room to the fireplace, then staggered backwards, and put out his hands in terror before David's chair.

"Sir! Sir!" he whispered hoarsely, "are you there?" Then he fled.

Meantime I bought the grey cob from Joan Oliphant, and another hunter, a bay mare, which cost just double the price of the cob; but, then, she was very well-bred and well-mannered, and I did not find out till afterwards that she was a slight-a very slight -whistler.

It never stopped her, and I had great fun with those two horses. Sir Hugh Winder was M.F.H., and it was a small friendly sort of Hunt, not ambitious of notoriety, but

ever so keen on the sport. The hounds hunted twice a week, and three times every other week.

I only missed two days from January to the end of February, thanks to the excellent care that Dick Hall took of my horses. He was an old groom of David's; and Simpson, who knew his address, found him out for me. I just left everything to him, for I knew he was honest, and he could order all the hay and oats he wanted from Hilda's steward. Dick had his own notions about the feeding of hunters, which I never interfered with, but which Sir Hugh laughed to scorn. However, as I said, if the horses are never sick or sorry, what more can you want?

I don't intend to describe the runs we had. It wasn't a very big country, and there was rather too much woodland. I think hunting runs make very dull reading, unless you have been in them, or unless they have been written by a genius like Miss Somerville. You can easily see that she adores each separate horse and hound personally, in that curious way that Irish people have. But I do nothing of the kind. I neither adore animals nor children, but I can get very good fun out of both, as I said to Tom Milbanke when he was very much surprised at my not going to visit Wagtail, the grey cob, in the stable where he was laid up with a pretty bad cut on his hock.

and no one can do it better," I said. "It's a lucky thing it happened just when the frost came. How long do you suppose this will hold !"

"Oh, three days, as it's February. But why do you pretend to be heartless to animals and children ? It's the only bit of pretence I have found in you.”

"I'm not pretending, and I'm not actually heartless; only rather hard-hearted. I don't regret it at all. Most sensible people are like me; not all, of

course.'

"Connie, for instance?" he put in.

"Connie has tons of sense, but it absolutely forsakes her where Bertie and Ted are concerned. If Connie had seen half the things that I have seen-in France, you know, during those years,—she'd have broken her heart. But I didn't, and it leaves me a more useful kind of person."

"Oh, you're no end of use. Useful and ornamental too." "What worn-out expressions you employ !"

"I'm not original, like Bill Gresham. Have you heard what he has done?"

"No, we never hear from him. He was David's pal, but not Hilda's, and I managed to incur his august disapproval too. In fact, I earned it thoroughly."

"Then he must have dis approved with great suddenness. His approval was very palpable before."

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notice of me, and that reluctantly, because I insisted on it.” "Oh, you insisted? ". "Well, yes. It isn't amusing to be in the same house with a great big man who takes no notice of you. And when he's a very dignified man, you feel naturally inclined to upset his dignity, and so I did. I startled him, in fact, considerably."

"I wish you'd startle me, Joey."

"Couldn't. You have no dignity to be upset. You're just a pal of mine, and very useful too. But you haven't told me yet what it is that Bill has done ? "

"Oh, just turned rancher out in Alberta, and says he's never coming home no more."

"Alberta. That's in California, isn't it?"

"Why, you cuckoo-!" "Oh no, of course, it's in Calgary. I mean, Calgary is the capital of Alberta. Now I know, because that was where they met the Hardings for the delivery of Patsy."

"You really ought to learn some geography, Joey. You're not too old, if you begin at once."

"It would make me old. And besides, there's no necessity, for I shall know all about it, and more than I want to, before very long."

'Why, I thought you were getting rather fond of that bay mare. She went like a bird with you last Friday."

"She is a bird, but her wind won't be improved after a summer's grass, Tom. So there would be very little sense in keeping her. Better sell her while I can."