as she remarked afterwards, "For the fuss he made
about it he might have been going to the North Pole with his life in his
hands. So like Vincent!" As for Hardy, he felt already the wind of the
new heaven and the sweetness of the new earth.

Audrey was staring abstractedly into the looking-glass, when she heard
the front-door shut with a violent bang, and the sound of his quick
footsteps on the pavement below. She came to herself with a cold shiver.

What had she done? Surely she had not gone and engaged herself to
Vincent? bound herself in the first year of her liberty to a man she had
known all her life, and her own cousin too?

It was impossible; for, you see, it would have argued great weakness of
mind and a total want of originality.

CHAPTER III

Whether Audrey did or did not understand herself, she was a mystery to
all about her, and to none more than her father's cousin and her own
chaperon, Miss Craven. This unfortunate lady, under stress of
circumstances, had accepted the charge of Audrey after her parents'
death, and had never ceased to watch her movements with bewildered
interest and surprise. The most familiar phenomena are often the least
understood, and Miss Craven's intelligence was daily baffled by the
problem of Audrey. Daily she renewed her researches, with enthusiasm
which would have done credit to a natural philosopher, but hitherto she
had found no hypothesis to cover all the facts. The girl was either a
rule for herself, or the exception that proved other people's rules; and
Miss Craven was obliged to rest satisfied in the vague conclusion that
she had a great deal of "character." Strange to say, that is how Audrey
struck most of her acquaintance, though as yet no one had been known to
venture on further definition. Miss Craven was repaid for her
affectionate solicitude by an indifference none the less galling because
evidently unstudied. Audrey rather liked her chaperon than otherwise.
The "poor old thing," as she called her, never got in her way, never
questioned her will, and made no claims whatsoever on her valuable time;
besides relieving her of all those little duties that make us wonder
whether life be worth living.

Under the present dispensation chaperons were a necessary evil; and
Audrey was not one to fly heedlessly in the face of her Providence,
Society.

All the same, Miss Craven had her drawbacks. If you, being young and
vivacious, take a highly nervous old lady and k