ss important branch of the Courtenayes. Also
did he strive expensively to prove a right to Courtenaye Abbey as well,
though not one of _his_ Courtenayes had ever put a nose inside it and I
was the next heir, after Grandmother. He didn't fight (he kindly
explained to Mr. Carstairs) to snatch the property out of our mouths. If
he got it, we might go on living there till the end of our days. All he
wanted was to _own_ the place, and have the right to keep it up
decently, as we'd never been able to do.

Well, he had to be satisfied with his title and without the Abbey; which
was luck for us. But there our luck ended. Not only did the war break
out before I had a single proposal worth accepting, but an awful thing
happened at the Abbey.

Grandmother had to keep on the rented town house, for patriotic motives,
no matter _what_ the expense, because she had turned it into an
_ouvroir_ for the making of hospital supplies. She directed the work
herself, and I and Shelagh Leigh (Shelagh was just out of the schoolroom
then) and lots of other girls slaved seven hours a day. Suddenly, just
when we'd had a big "hurry order" for pneumonia jackets, there was a
shortage of material. But Grandmother wasn't a woman to be conquered by
shortages! She remembered a hundred yards of bargain stuff she'd bought
to be used for new dust-sheets at the Abbey; and as all the servants but
two were discharged when we left for town, the sheets had never been
made up.

_She_ could not be spared for a day, but I could. By this time I was
nineteen, and felt fifty in wisdom, as all girls do, since the war.
Grandmother was old-fashioned in some ways, but new-fashioned in others,
so she ordered me off to Courtenaye Abbey by myself to unlock the room
where the bundle had been put. Train service was not good, and I would
have to stay the night; but she wired to old Barlow and his wife--once
lodge-keepers, now trusted guardians of the house. She told Mrs. Barlow
(a pretty old Devonshire Thing, like peaches and cream, called by me
"Barley") to get my old room ready; and Barlow was to meet me at the
train. At the last moment, however, Shelagh Leigh decided to go with me;
and if we had guessed it, this was to turn out one of the most important
decisions of her life. Barlow met us, of course; and how he had changed
since last I'd seen his comfortable face! I expected him to be charmed
with the sight of me, if not of Shelagh, for I was always a favourite
with Barl