here, if you would seem a ghost like all the
others. Nothing is real but my thoughts of the things that used to be.
I can't believe that I am on my way to London, and that I am going to
live with Constance, and go sightseeing with Aunt Frances and Grace,
and give up my plans for the--Great Adventure. Aunt Isabelle sat
beside me this morning, and we talked about it. She will stay with
Aunt Frances and Grace, and we shall see each other every day. I
couldn't quite get along at all if it were not for Aunt Isabelle--she
is such a mother-person, and she doesn't make me feel, as the rest of
them do, that I must be brave and courageous. She just pats my hand
and says, "It's going to be all right, Mary dear--it is going to be all
right," and presently I begin to feel that it is; she has such a
fashion of ignoring the troublesome things of this world, and simply
looking ahead to the next. She told me once that heaven would mean to
her, first of all, a place of beautiful sounds--and second it would
mean freedom. You see she has always been dominated by Aunt Frances,
poor thing.

Do you remember how I used to talk of freedom? But now I'm to be a
bird in a cage. It will be a gilded cage, of course. Even Grace says
that Constance's home is charming--great lovely rooms and massive
furniture; and when we begin to go again into society, I am to be
introduced to lots of grand folk, and perhaps presented.

And I am to forget that I ever worked in a grubby government
office--indeed I am to forget that I ever worked at all.

And I am to forget all of my dreams. I am to change from the Mary
Ballard who wanted to do things to the Mary Ballard who wants them done
for her. Perhaps when you see me again I shall be nice and clinging
and as sweetly feminine as you used to want me to be--Roger Poole.

The mists have cleared, and there's a cloud on the horizon--I can hear
people saying that it means a storm. Shall I be afraid? I wonder. Do
you remember the storm that came that day in the garden and drove us
in? I wonder if we shall ever be together again in the dear old garden?

_After the storm._

Last night the storm waked us. It was a dreadful storm, with the wind
booming, and the sea all whipped up into a whirlpool.

But I wasn't frightened, although everybody was awake, and there was a
feeling that something might happen. I asked Porter to take me on
deck, but he said that no one was allowed, and so we just curled u