and sit down, Emily Harrington!"

"Granny told me you were here," said Milly, a little taken aback by this
reception, "so I thought I must come in and see how you were."

"We are very well, thank you kindly, Milly. And how are you? But there
is no need to ask you, for you look a picture of health, and spirits,
and--and good luck, Milly Harrington!"

"Oh yes, I am very well. You don't know that I have been married since
you saw me last. My name is Mrs. Beadon now."

She drew off her glove as she spoke, and let her long hand fall upon her
lap, so that the old ladies might see her wedding-ring and keeper.

"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Bundlecombe, in a mollified voice, "if you
are married to a good man, I am very glad, indeed. And I hope he is well
to-do, and makes you happy. You are nicely dressed, Milly, but nice
clothes are not everything, are they?"

"No, indeed, they are not. Oh, yes, Mr. Beadon is good to me in every
way, so you need not trouble yourself on my account."

After that preliminary sparring, they became friendly enough. Milly was
quite at her ease when her position as a wife was established, and she
amused her hearers by a lively account of her recent fortunes and
adventures--some of them, perhaps, slightly fictitious in character,
others exaggerated and glorified. Her husband, she told them, was a
great traveler, and was sometimes out of England for six months or a
year at a time. He had just gone abroad again, and she had taken the
opportunity of coming to see her grandmother--and even of living with
her for awhile, if she found Birchmead supportable. They were not rich,
but Mr. Beadon allowed her quite enough to live comfortably upon.

So she played the grand lady in the hamlet, to her own infinite
satisfaction. But now and again she had business to transact in London,
and then she would send to Thorley for a cab, and take the afternoon
train to Liverpool Street, and return in about twenty-four hours,
generally with some little present in her bag for her grandmother, or
grandmother's friends.

None the less did poor Milly find that time hung heavy on her hands. She
had not yet clipped the wings of her ambition, and she still pined for a
wider sphere in which to satisfy her vague and restless longings.
However she might brave it out to others, she was very far from being
happy; and now and then she took herself to task, and admitted that all
she had, and all she hoped for, would be but a small p