nse of triumph over the doubts
which had troubled her. She put out her hand and patted Audrey's.
"I am so--" she almost, in her relief, said "I am so glad!"
"I would like you to stay, dear, but I feel it is your duty to go, and
mine to spare you."

"May I come back, granny, when the year is up?" pleaded Audrey, keeping
back her tears by remembering that her eyes would be red for her journey.
"It would be lovely to think that this day twelve-months I shall be seeing
it all again."

"If your father and mother can spare you, and you still wish to come,
I shall be very glad to have you, and your room will be waiting for you."

That was comforting, but the thought of leaving that pretty, beloved room
for a whole year set the tears flowing again. "Oh, I mustn't cry,
I mustn't," she said to herself fiercely. "Everybody at the station will
see, and everyone in the train, too." But, as her eyes wandered from one
to another of the familiar things, the pretty cups and saucers, the silver
coffeepot, the funny old tall cosy that granny used, and all the rest of
them, the sense of loss and parting again became too much for her,
and this time the tears flowed without thought of appearances.

"I think I love things more than people," she said to herself, as she
stood in her bedroom putting on her hat and coat; and she stooped and
kissed the two old foreign shells on the mantelpiece with a sudden feeling
of sympathy. They must have travelled so far from their home, and would
never, never go back. She leaned out of the window for the last time, and
took a long look at the well-filled garden, and at the flat country
beyond, and the river shining in the sunlight.

The sight of the river and the hills brought her some comfort. They had
been there so long, and would be there unchanged whenever she came back.
"And I am coming! I am coming! I _will_ come!" she cried passionately.

A knock sounded at her door. "Mistress wants to know if you are ready,
miss," said Phipps, granny's maid, who had been with her for
five-and-twenty years. "The sandwiches and milk are ready for you in the
dining-room, Miss Audrey. The train leaves in half an hour."

"I will be down in a minute," said Audrey, in a choked voice. She hoped
desperately that Phipps would go away and leave her alone to say her last
good-bye to her room. But Phipps showed no such intention.

"I'll fasten up the bag, and bring it down, miss," and she laid hands on
the s