e of a
different generation; and the young people in their turn should remember
the long years of tender care and devotion which they have received, and
be infinitely patient in their turn. They, who are so impatient of
passing ailments, should try to imagine how it would feel to be always
feeble, and to see in the future the certainty of growing more and more
suffering and incapable. They should realise that it is in their power
to make the sunshine of declining days, and thereby to store up for
themselves a lasting joy, instead of a reproach.

In looking back upon those two years spent in Rutland Road, Sylvia
forgot her aunt's lack of sympathy, her prosy talk, and repeated fault-
finding; they were lost in remembering the true kindness of heart which
lay beneath all mannerism. What she was never able to forget was her
own impatience and neglect of opportunity.

Once or twice as the days passed by, Bridgie O'Shaughnessy ran to the
gate to intercept her friend as she passed, and exchange a hurried
greeting, but Sylvia would not trust her great news to such occasions as
these. She waited until an opportunity arose for an uninterrupted talk,
and as she waited a desire awoke and grew in intensity, to herself tell
Jack of the coming separation. Bridgie must, of course, be informed of
the journey to France and Germany, but she would wait until the evening
of Esmeralda's reception before disclosing the full extent of her
travels.

When she and Jack were sitting together in one of the charming little
niches in which the rooms abounded, he would naturally begin to talk of
her journey, and she would smile and look unconcerned, and, in the most
cheerful and natural of tones, announce that she was not coming back to
Rutland Road, that it would probably be a year at least before she saw
England again.

Surely when he heard this for the first time, when it was burst upon him
as an utter surprise, she would read in his face whether she had been
right in imagining that he really "cared," or if it had been a delusion
born of girlish vanity. She would be quite calm and serene, would not
in any way pose as a martyr or seem to expect any expression of
distress, but she could not--could not bring herself to go away without
making this one innocent little effort to solve the mystery which meant
so much to her happiness and peace of mind.

So Sylvia purposely kept out of Bridgie's way during the ten days after
the receipt of her