xford man staying with her in
June--a missionary--and it annoyed her very much that neither Agnes nor
I would intervene to prevent his resuming his profession. She seemed to
think it was a question of saving him from being eaten, and apparently
he would have proposed to either of us.'

Catherine could not help laughing. 'I suppose she still thinks she
married Robert and me.'

'Of course. So she did.'

Catherine colored a little, but Rose's hard lightness of tone was
unconquerable.

'Or if she didn't,' Rose resumed, 'nobody could have the heart to rob
her of the illusion. Oh, by the way, Sarah has been under warning since
June! Mrs. Thornburgh told her desperately that she must either throw
over her young man, who was picked up drunk at the Vicarage gate one
night, or vacate the Vicarage kitchen. Sarah cheerfully accepted her
month's notice, and is still making the Vicarage jams and walking
out with the young man every Sunday. Mr. Thornburgh sees that it will
require a convulsion of nature to get rid either of Sarah or the young
man, and has succumbed.'

'And the Tysons? And that poor Walker girl?'

'Oh, dear me, Catherine!' said Rose, a strange disproportionate flash of
impatience breaking through. 'Everyone in Long Whindale is always just
where and what they were last year. I admit they are born and die, but
they do nothing else of a decisive kind.'

Catherine's hands worked away for a while, then she laid down her book
and said, lifting her clear, large eyes on her sister,--

'Was there never a time when you loved the valley, Rose?'

'Never!' cried Rose.

Then she pushed away her work, and leaning her elbows on the table
turned her brilliant face to Catherine. There was frank mutiny in it.

'By the way, Catherine, are you going to prevent mamma from letting me
go to Berlin for the winter?'

'And after Berlin, Rose?' said Catherine, presently, her gaze bent upon
her work.

'After Berlin? What next?' said Rose recklessly. 'Well, after Berlin I
shall try to persuade mamma and Agnes, I suppose, to come and back me up
in London. We could still be some months of the year at Burwood.'

Now she had said it out. But there was something else surely goading the
girl than mere intolerance of the family tradition. The hesitancy, the
moral doubt of her conversation with Langham, seemed to have vanished
wholly in a kind of acrid self-assertion.

Catherine felt a shock sweep through her, It was as though all the
p