, or her
matrimonial intentions."

"So it was; I forgot that!" Norah smiled with recovered cheerfulness,
for Rex's words had lifted a load from her mind, and the future seemed
several shades less gloomy than it had done a few minutes before.

"And if you went, how soon would you start?"

"As soon as possible. I have wasted too much time already. The sooner
I go, the sooner I can make my way and come home again to see you all.
Three or five years, I suppose. You will be quite an old woman, Norah."

"Yes; twenty-three! Lettice will be married; Hilary too, very likely.
The Mouse will be as big as I was when you first knew us, and Raymond a
doctor in practice. It will all be different!" Norah's voice was very
low as she spoke the last words, and her face twitched as if she were
about to break down once more.

Rex looked at her with the same odd mingling of tenderness and vexation
which he had shown a few minutes earlier.

"Of course it will be different! We are not children any longer, and
can't expect to go on as we have been doing. What was the Vicar's text
the other Sunday?--`As an eagle stirreth up her nest'--I liked that
sermon! It has been very happy and jolly, but it is time we stirred out
of the old nest, and began to work for ourselves, and prepare for nests
of our own. I am past twenty-one, my father need not be afraid to trust
me, for I can look after myself, and though the life will be very
different out there, I'll try to do nothing that I should be ashamed to
tell you, Norah, when I come home!"

Norah turned round with a flush, and an eager, outstretched hand, but
only to behold Mr Rex marching along on the edge of the very
flowerbeds, with a head in the air, and a "touch me if you dare"
expression, at the sight of which his companion gave a dismal little
smile.

That was Rex all over! In spite of his masterful ways, he was intensely
shy where his deeper feelings were concerned. To say an affectionate
word seemed to require as painful an effort as to drag out a tooth, and
if by chance he was betrayed into such an indiscretion, he protected
himself against its consequences by putting on his most "prickly" airs,
and freezing the astonished hearer by his frigid tones. Norah
understood that having shown her a glimpse of his heart in the last
remark, he was now overcome with remorse, and that she must be wise and
take no notice of the indiscretion.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

MORE CHANGES.

F