terribly lonely in this house, Caroline?" she said. "It
is so large and so wonderful that I should think it must make solitude
almost a bodily shape to you. And this room seems to be in the very
heart of the house. Do you ever sit here without a friend or guest?"

"Now and then, but not often at night," said Miss Briggs, with serene
self-possession.

"You are an extraordinary woman!" said Lady Sellingworth.

"Extraordinary! Why?"

"Because you always seem so satisfied to live quite alone. I hate
solitude. I'm afraid of it."

Suddenly she felt that she must be partially frank with her hostess.

"Is self-respect a real companion for a woman?" she said. "Can one sit
with it and be contented? Does it repay a woman for all the sacrifices
she has offered up to it? Is it worth the sacrifices? That's what I want
to know."

"I dare say that depends on the woman's mental make up," replied Miss
Briggs. "One woman, perhaps, might find that it was, another that it was
not."

"Yes, we are all so different, so dreadfully different, one from
another."

"It would be very much duller if we weren't."

"Even as it is life can be very dull."

"I should certainly not call your life dull," said Miss Briggs.

"Anyhow, it's dreadful!" said Lady Sellingworth, with sudden
abandonment.

"Why is it dreadful?"

"Caroline, I was fifty a few days ago."

As Lady Sellingworth said this she observed her friend closely to see if
she looked surprised. Miss Briggs did not look surprised. And she only
said:

"Were you? Well, I shall be fifty-eight in a couple of months."

"You don't look it."

"Perhaps that's because I haven't looked young for the last thirty
years."

"I hate being fifty. The difficulty with me is that my--my nature and my
temperament don't match with my age. And that worries me. What is one to
do?"

"Do you want me to advise you about something?"

"I think I do. But it's so difficult to explain. Perhaps there is a time
to give up. Perhaps I have reached it. But if I do give up, what am I to
do? How am I to live? I might marry again."

"Why not?"

"It would have to be an elderly man, wouldn't it?"

"I hope so."

"I--I shouldn't care to marry an elderly man. I don't want to."

"Then don't do it."

"You think if I were to marry a comparatively young man--"

She paused, looking almost pleadingly at the uncompromising Miss Briggs.

"I'm convinced of this, that no really normal young man could ever be
cont