e house is, with that poor woman squeezing her way about
that enormous kitchen furniture!"

Pauline looked out of the window as she spoke, and there at last was
Guy, standing on the lawn with her father, who was explaining something
about a root which he held in his hand. On the two of them the rain
poured steadily down. Pauline threw up the sash and called out that they
were to come in at once.

"I am glad he's.... Why, what's the matter, Margaret?" she asked, as she
saw her sister looking at her with an expression of rather emphatic
surprise.

"Really," commented Margaret. "I shouldn't have thought it was necessary
to soothe his ruffled feelings by giving him the idea that you've been
watching at the window all the week for his visit."

"Oh, Margaret, you are unkind," and, since words would all too soon have
melted into tears, Pauline rushed from the nursery away to her own white
fastness at the top of the house. She did not pause in her headlong
flight to greet her mother in the passage; nor even when she entangled
herself in Janet's apron could she say a word.

"Good gracious, Miss Pauline!" gasped Janet. "And only just now the cat
went and run between my legs in the hall."

Pauline's bedroom was immediately over the nursery; but so roundabout
was the construction of the Rectory that, to reach the one from the
other, all sorts of corridors and twisting stairways had to be passed;
and when finally she flung herself down in her small arm-chair she was
breathless. Soon, however, the tranquillity of the room restored her.
The faded blue linen, so cool to her cheeks, quieted all the passionate
indignation. On the wall Saint Ursula, asleep in her bed, seemed
inconsistent with a proud rage; nor did Tobit, laughing in the angel's
company, encourage her to sulk. Therefore, almost before Guy had taken
off his wet overcoat, Pauline had rushed down-stairs again, had kissed
Margaret, and had put three stitches in the tail of the scarlet bird
that occupied her tambour-frame. Certainly when he came into the
drawing-room she was as serene as her two sisters, and much more serene
than Mrs. Grey, who had just discovered that she had carefully made the
tea without a spoonful in the pot, besides mislaying a bottle of
embrocation she had spent the afternoon in finding for an old
parishioner's rheumatism.

Pauline, however, soon began to worry herself again because Guy was
surely avoiding her most deliberately, and not merely avo