pted St.
Anthony. I know plenty of saints; but I know only one little, soft
kissable Nelly. She shan't be taken from us!'

_So horribly impersonal_! What did Cicely mean?

Well, Cicely--with the object described in full view--would soon be
able to tell her. For the Marsworths were coming to Carton for a week,
before starting for Rome, and would certainly come over to her to say
good-bye. As to William--would it really be necessary to leave him
behind? Nelly must before long brace herself to see him again, as an
ordinary friend. He had meant no harm--and done no harm--poor William!
Hester was beginning secretly to be his warm partisan.

Twenty-four hours later, Nelly arrived. As Hester received her from the
coach, and walked with her arm round the tiny waist to the cottage by
the bend of the river, where tea beside the sun-flecked stream was set
for the traveller, the older friend was at once startled and reassured.
Reassured--because, after these six months, Nelly could laugh once more,
and her step was once more firm and normal; and startled, by the new and
lonely independence she perceived in her frail visitor. Nelly was in
black again, with a small black hat from which her widow's veil fell
back over her shoulders. The veil, the lawn collar and cuffs, together
with her childish slightness, and the curls on her temples and brow that
she had tried in vain to straighten, made her look like a little girl
masquerading. And yet, in truth, what struck her hostess was the sad
maturity for which she seemed to have exchanged her old clinging ways.
She spoke, for the first time, as one who was mistress of her own life
and its issues; with a perfectly clear notion of what there was for her
to do. She had made up her mind, she told Hester, to take work offered
her in one of the new special hospitals for nervous cases which were the
product of the war. 'They think I have a turn for it, and they are going
to train me. Isn't it kind and dear of them?'

'But I am told it is the most exhausting form of nursing there is,' said
Hester wondering. 'Are you quite sure you can stand it?'

'Try me!' said Nelly, with a strange brightness of look. Then reaching
out a hand she slipped it contentedly into her friend's. 'Hester!--isn't
it strange what we imagine about ourselves--and what is really true? I
thought the first weeks that I was in hospital, I _must_ break down. I
never dreamt that anyone could feel so tired--so deadly ill--and yet