her day if I'd let him. I like
him rather, don't you? He's getting a bit fat, of course, but he's got
nice eyes, and then he's a real man. I like real men. But there, you'll
be thinking me coarse, I know you will. I'm not coarse really, only
impulsive. You don't like me, honestly, if it were known. Oh no! you
don't! I can tell. I always know. But I don't care--I love you. You're
a darling--and what I say is if you love some one, just love them.
Never mind what they think. Don't you agree with me? But you wouldn't.
You wouldn't think of loving anybody. But I'm not really bad--only
careless, Mother says--"

What Mother said could not be known, because the door opened and Martha
announced Mr. Crashaw. The old man, leaning on a walking stick, came
forward and greeted Maggie and Caroline with good-temper and
amiability. He was indeed in day-time a very mild old man, and it was
difficult for Maggie to believe that this was the same who last night
had frightened her out of her wits and led her to the edge of such
strange suspicions. He was more than ever like a monkey, with his bony
brown forehead, protuberant eyes and large mottled nose, and he sat
there all huddled up by his rheumatism, a living example of present
physical torments rather than future spiritual ones. It was apparent at
once that he liked pretty young women, and he paid Caroline a number of
flattering attentions, disregarding Maggie with a frankness that
witnessed to a life that had taught one lesson at least, never on any
occasion to waste time. Maggie did not mind--it amused her to see her
terror of the night before transformed into a mere serenading crippled
old gentleman, and to see, too, the excited pleasure with which
Caroline accepted even such decayed attentions as these. But what was
it that had persuaded her last night? Why did she now spend her time
half in one world and half in another? Which world was the real one?

Aunt Anne very soon joined them, and this quiet, composed figure only
added to Maggie's scorn of her last night's terrors. Was this the same
who had struggled with such agony, who had made Maggie feel that she
was caught in a trap and imprisoned for ever?

The sun beat hotly upon the carpet. Caroline's rose-coloured silk shone
and glowed, the tea was poured out, and there was chatter about the
warm winter that it was and how time passed, and how fashions changed,
and how you never saw a four-wheeler now, and what they were turning
K