dear Cyril; but your father
says he is an excellent fellow.'

'I think I shall change my place at table, mother. I shall sit between
you and father. That is, if you do not mind,' she added, with ready
courtesy.

'My love, as though I should mind! And I am sure your father will be
delighted to have you. He was only speaking of you an hour ago. He
thinks you are behaving so well, Audrey, and so does Percival. Percival
declared that he was quite proud of you at the Charringtons' "at home";
that it must have been such an ordeal for you to meet all those people.
A girl in your position is generally so sensitive; but he told me that
even Geraldine could not have been more dignified and at her ease.'

'That is high praise from Percival,' returned Audrey, smiling. 'He
thinks Gage's manners are perfection--and so they are; but, mother, he
need not have praised me so much. The people were nothing to me--I
hardly thought of them at all. I was only remembering the last time I
was there, and how Cyril was with me; it was the saddest evening I have
spent yet.'

And then she sighed and disengaged herself from her mother's embrace.

'Don't let us talk of it, mother dear; one can bear things better if one
does not speak of them. I am going to drive with Gage now, and perhaps
she will keep me to dinner;' and then she went quickly away.

After all, it was better to do something than to waste her time in
complaining: it was seldom that she allowed herself to speak of her
feelings even to her mother, and if she suffered a word or two to escape
her, she always reproached herself afterwards for her weakness.

When Mollie's letter arrived the next day she left it unopened until she
was in her own room. Michael was up in town, as usual. He rarely spent
more than a few days together at Woodcote now. Audrey did not regret his
absence as she would otherwise have done, because she knew he would be
with Cyril.

When her father glanced at her letter she said quietly that it was from
Mollie, and then he made no further observation.

But when she was in her own room she opened it somewhat eagerly. 'Dear
little Mollie! I never thought I should miss her quite so much,' she
thought.

Evidently Mollie had taken a long time to write that letter; it had been
commenced two days after her arrival in London, and it had not been
completed until now.

The first two or three pages, written in Mollie's girlish angular
handwriting, were filled with pl