ainst the white cheeks. It was a comfort to tell it all to one who
understood, and was full of sympathy and kindness, and strange though it
might seem, separation, instead of widening the distance between Jack
and herself, had only drawn them more closely together.

The old formalities of intercourse had dropped like a cloak at the first
moment of meeting; they were no longer Miss and Mr, but "Jack" and
"Sylvia"; no longer acquaintances, but dear and intimate friends.

"Miss Munns has been terribly distressed," Jack said, when at last the
sad recital came to an end. "She loved your father more than anyone in
the world, and you come next as his child. Poor old lady! it was quite
pathetic to see her efforts to make your home-coming as cheerful as
possible. Bridgie says she has put up clean curtains all over the
house, and discussed the menu for supper for the last week. It's her
way of showing sympathy, the creature! and you understand better than
myself all that it means. Different people have different ways, haven't
they, Sylvia? _I_ came to Dover!"

"Yes!" assented Sylvia, with a flickering smile. "You came to Dover,
and Aunt Margaret put up clean curtains, and ordered a roast fowl for
supper--I know it will be a roast fowl!--and if you had not warned me in
time, I should probably have said I could not eat anything, and gone to
bed supperless, without even noticing the curtains. I am afraid I have
been horrid to the poor old soul in that sort of way many times in the
last two years. It is good of her to take such trouble, because,
honestly speaking, she won't be any more pleased to have me back as a
permanency than I am to come. We have mutually comforted ourselves with
the reflection that it was `only for a time,' but now it is different.
I want to be good--I have made, oh! such a crowd of good resolutions,
but I don't know how long they will last!"

Jack looked down at his boots, and drew his brows together thoughtfully.

"You--er--it's too early, I suppose, to have made any plans for the
future. You hardly know what you will do?"

"No: my natural home is, of course, with Aunt Margaret as father's
sister, but there are other considerations." Sylvia hesitated a moment,
then added impetuously--it seemed so natural to confide in Jack!--"About
money, I mean. I don't know what I have, or if I have anything at all.
Father always said he was poor, though he seemed to have enough for what
he wanted, and to