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her tints—blue and white and gold—but she did not look ill, only fragile and flower-like; forget-me-nots and cowslips growing strangely in fields of Snow.

‘But Monica — you’re not going!’ she said, coming to embrace her friend. Celia’s devotion always gave Monica a sense of establishment, security, in a world of change. She had always been part of Celia’s world and Celia understood her, better, she sometimes suspected, than she understood herself; or perhaps it would be truer to say that she knew of herself the evil of which she was capable and Celia the good. It was reconstructing to be with anyone who saw the good—sometimes when one had forgotten it oneself—and her eyes dwelt fondly on the girl as she said: ‘I only ran in for a moment—I must be back by twelve; Mrs. Fellows is coming to see me about the nursing committee.—How well you look, my darling.—Did you enjoy your drive?’

‘Ever so much.—I never knew anyone drive so fast as Captain Ingpen. He was trying to frighten me, I believe;—but I wasn’t frightened. I liked it!’ laughed Celia. She was seldom shy nowadays and Monica sometimes grieved over this as a sign that girlhood was over.—She was not in the least shy now.