told her I would accept Miss Farrell's invitation to go and
spend a Sunday with them.'

'Well, it might distract you. But you needn't expect to get much out of
Cicely!'

The old face lit up with its tolerant, half-sarcastic smile.

'I shall be dreadfully afraid of her!' said Nelly.

'No need to be. William will keep her in order. She is a foolish woman,
Cicely, and her own worst enemy, but--somehow'--The speaker paused. She
was about to say--'somehow I am fond of her'--when she suddenly wondered
whether the remark would be true, and stopped herself.

'I think she's very--very good-looking'--said Nelly, heartily. 'Only,
why'--she hesitated, but her half-laughing look continued the sentence.

'Why does she blacken her eyebrows, and paint her lips, and powder her
cheeks? Is that what you mean?'

Nelly's look was apologetic. 'She doesn't really want it, does she?' she
said shyly, as though remembering that she was speaking to a kinswoman
of the person discussed. 'She could do so well without it.'

'No--to be quite candid, I don't think she _would_ look so well without
it. That's the worst of it. It seems to suit her to be made up!--though
everybody knows it _is_ make-up.'

'Of course, if George wanted me to "make up," I should do it at once,'
said Nelly, thoughtfully, propping her chin on her hands, and staring at
the lake. 'But he hates it. Is--is Miss Farrell--' she looked
round--'in love with anybody?'

Miss Martin laughed.

'I'll leave you to find out--when you go there. So if your husband liked
you to paint and powder, you would do it?'

The older woman looked curiously at her companion. As she sat there, on
a rock above the lake, in a grey nurse's dress with a nurse's bonnet
tied under her chin, Hester Martin conveyed an impression of rugged and
unconscious strength which seemed to fuse her with the crag behind her.
She had been gathering sphagnum moss on the fells almost from sunrise
that morning; and by tea-time she was expecting a dozen munition-workers
from Barrow, whom she was to house, feed and 'do for,' in her little
cottage over the week-end. In the interval, she had climbed the steep
path to that white farm where death had just entered, and having mourned
with them that mourn, she had come now, as naturally, to rejoice with
Nelly Sarratt.

Nelly considered her question, but not in any doubtfulness of mind.

'Indeed, I would,' she said, decidedly. 'Isn't it my duty to make George
happy?'

'