use at Hampstead and settle the servants on
board wages. It had been arranged that she and Coppertop should come on
to Netherway immediately this was accomplished.

Magda could hardly believe that only a year had elapsed since last the
roses beckoned her out of London. It seemed far longer since that hot
summer's day when she had rushed away to Devonshire, vainly seeking a
narcotic for the new and bewildering turmoil of pain that was besetting
her.

She had learned now that you carry a heartache with you, and that no
change of scenery makes up for the beloved face you can no longer see.
For Michael had not come back. He had remained abroad and had never by
sign or letter acknowledged that he even remembered her existence. Magda
had come to accept it as a fact now that he had gone out of her life
entirely.

A whiff of air tinged with the salt tang of the sea blew in at the
window, and she came suddenly out of her musings to find that the car
was winding its way up the hill upon which the Hermitage was perched.

A long, low house, clothed in creeper, it stood just below the hill's
brow, sheltered to the rear by a great belt of woods, and overlooking a
sea which sparkled in the sunlight as though strewn with diamond-dust.

Lady Arabella was waiting in the porch when the car drew up and welcomed
her god-daughter with delight. She seemed bubbling over with good
spirits, and there was a half-mischievous, half-guilty twinkle in her
keen old eyes which suggested that there might be some ulterior cause
for her effervescence.

"If you were poor I should say you'd just come into a fortune,"
commented Magda, regarding her judicially. "As you're not, I should like
to know why you're looking as pleased as a child with a new toy. Own up,
now, Marraine! What's the secret you've got up your sleeve?"

"Yes, there is a secret," acknowledged Lady Arabella gleefully. "Come
along and I'll show it you."

Magda smiled and followed her across the long hall and into a room at
the further end of which stood a big easel. On the easel, just nearing
completion, rested a portrait of her godmother. It was rather a
wonderful portrait. The artist seemed to have penetrated beyond the mere
physical lineaments of his sitter into the very crannies of her soul. It
was all there--the thoroughly worldly shrewdness, the mordant, somewhat
cynical humour, and the genuine kindness of heart which went to make up
Lady Arabella's personality as her world kne