wn to pierce the mental fog we each one of us weave about ourselves
and so allow us to help one another, sometimes even at a great distance.

Maria Hobson knocked and opened Jane Coop's door, who rose and came
quickly towards her; and as her grace's maid involuntarily glanced
round the room, old Nannie peered over her shoulder with the hope of
seeing her young mistress in the corridor.

"Isn't she here?"

"My young lady? No; she's dancing." She paused, and put out her hand.
"Isn't she dancing? Isn't she?"

Why did Jane Coop fear as the others feared, and why did her bonny face
go suddenly white?

Because she, too, was one of the happy, limited throng who know what
real love is.

"My mistress would like to speak to you, Miss Coop."

"What's wrong? Maria Hobson, tell me what's wrong."

Hobson allowed the unlicensed use of her Christian name to pass
unnoticed; she closed the door behind her and spoke gently, as she took
the other woman's hand and shook it, which was her somewhat masculine
way of showing sympathy.

"I don't know; none of us know that anything _is_ wrong. As Mike
O'Rafferty used to say. 'We may be afther barking in the wrong
back-yard,' but I had a dream, Jane Coop. Sit you down whilst I'm
telling it you."

They sat on the sofa, hand in hand, strangely like their mistresses as
they sat in the sitting-room near the suspicious bulldog.

At the end of the story of the dream, Jane Coop rose.

"Thank you, Miss Hobson. I thought my young mistress was dancing. I
was hoping she was forgetting a bit, with the music and young folk.
There's one thing, I shall know where she has gone to. My dearie
wouldn't break her word. Come along." She opened the door and turned
and spoke over her shoulder.

"Drat men!" she said briefly and emphatically.

"Yes, _drat_ 'em!" replied Maria Hobson, even more emphatically, as her
memory leapt clear across the gulf of years to the time when she had
walked out with a certain Sergeant of the Irish Guards.

Jane Coop dropped a curtsey to the gentry and stood just inside the
door, up in arms, ready to fight anyone at the first word of
condemnation of her young mistress.

"Come over here, Coop, please, and tell me everything you can about
Miss Damaris. I have an idea--mind you, I am not sure--that she has
gone out alone, and we must be as quick as we can in finding her,
because Egypt is no place for a white girl to be running about in by
herself."

Jane Coop