t I've got
to go, Phil. I'm not sure that I haven't stayed too long! You know I
never meant to stay forever."

"Then you haven't been happy here! You don't--you don't like _me_!"

Lois sank into a chair by the window and drew the girl down beside her.
Phil gripped her mother's hands tight, and stared into her face with
tear-filled eyes.

"It's as hard for me as it is for you, Phil. But we may as well have it
out. I've taken passage for the first Saturday in June, and it's not far
off. Some friends are spending the summer in Switzerland and I'm going
to join them. It was half-understood when I came here."

"It's hard; it's unkind," Phil whispered. The fact that her mother had
planned flight so long ahead did not mitigate the hurt of it. Nothing,
it seemed, could ever be right in this world! And she had just effected
all the difficult readjustments made necessary by her mother's return!
She had given herself so unreservedly to this most wonderful of women!
Lois was touched by her show of feeling.

"I'm sorry," she said, stroking Phil's brown head. "I have had thoughts
of taking you with me. That would be easy enough--" she paused
uncertainly, as the clasp of Phil's hands tightened. "But, Phil, I have
no right to do that. It wouldn't be for your happiness in the end; I
know that; I'm sure of that."

"Oh, if you only would! I'll be very good--a lot nicer than you think I
am if you will take me."

"No!" said Lois sharply, but with a slight quaver in her voice that
caused hope to stir in Phil's breast.

"You hadn't any right to come back and make me love you and then run
away again! It isn't kind; it isn't just!"

"You wouldn't love me much longer if I stayed! You wouldn't love me very
long if I carried you off. You've seen the best of me: I've shown you my
best box of tricks. I don't wear well, Phil; that's the trouble with
me."

She rose abruptly and drew Phil to her feet, with an effort at gayety.

"As it is we really love each other a lot, and it would be hazardous for
me to stay longer. When I saw the first blossoms in the cherry tree, I
knew it was time to go. I used to feel that way when I was a child--as
though I just couldn't bear to stay any longer. I remember the days and
hours when I used to fight it, away back there when I was a school girl.
There must be gypsy blood in me. I can go on being just as you have seen
me--lazy and comfortable for a long time, and then the thing becomes
intolerable. It's