We will have a happy day, Babs--a happy day together!"

So now it is all arranged, and I am longing for the time to come. We
three will sit together on the back seat and talk all the time, and, as
Will says, I shall just forget everything in the world I don't care to
remember, and enjoy every minute of the time.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

_September 6th, 11 PM._
Here I am back in my own room; at least, I suppose it is me. I have
been staring at myself in the glass, and I look much the same. No one
who didn't know would guess what had happened to me during the last few
hours, and that to myself I feel all new and strange--a Una Sackville
who was never really alive until to-day.

I ought to be desperately miserable, and I am, but I am happy, too; half
the time I am so happy that I forget all about the past and the future,
and remember only the present. To-morrow morning, I suppose, I shall
begin worrying and fighting against fate, but for to-night I am
content--so utterly, perfectly content that there is no room to want
anything more. I'll begin at the beginning, and tell it straight
through to the end.

We started off for our ride at twelve o'clock this morning in the
highest of spirits, for the sun was shining, the sky was a deep
cloudless blue, and, better than all, Vere had taken her first walk
across the floor, supported by father on one side, and Jim on the other,
and had managed far better than any of us had expected. She and Jim had
arranged to have lunch together in the garden, and she waved her hand to
us at parting, and cried airily:

"Perhaps I may stroll down to the Lodge to meet you on your return!"

Father and mother looked at one another when they were outside the door,
so happy, poor dears, that they hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry,
and then out we went into the sunshine, where the motor was throbbing
and bumping as if it were impatient to be off. When I invent a motor
I'll make one that can be quiet when it stands. I'm not a bit nervous
when once we are started, but I hate it while we are waiting, and the
stupid thing behaves as if it were going to blow up every moment.

Rachel was waiting for us, and flushed to the loveliest pink when Will
appeared and she discovered that he was to be one of the party. Father,
mother and the chauffeur sat on the front seat, Rachel and I on the one
behind, with Will in the middle, and the luncheon