s that were past. It was this function that Alicia, at
the top of the staircase, so ardently desired to attend.

"No, I won't kiss you," Hilda said, as the other put her cool cheek
forward; "I'm so divinely happy--some of it might escape."

Alicia's voice pursued her as she ran down stairs. "Remember," she said,
"I don't approve. I don't at all agree either with my reverend cousin or
with you. I think you ought to find some other way or let it go. Go home
instead; go straight to London and insist on your chance. After six
weeks you will have forgotten the name of his Order."

Hilda looked back with a smile. Her face was splendid with the dawn and
promise of success. "Don't blaspheme," she cried. Alicia, leaning down,
was visited by a flash of quotation. "Well," she said, "'nothing in this
life becomes you like the leaving of it,'" and went back to her room to
write to Laura Filbert in Plymouth. She wrote often to Miss Filbert, at
Duff's request. It gratified her that she was able, without a pang, to
address four pages of pleasantly colourless communication to Mr.
Lindsay's _fiancee_. Her letters stood for a medicine surprisingly easy
to take, aimed at the convalescence which she already anticipated in the
future immediately beyond Duff's miserable marriage. If that event had
promised fortuitously she would have faced it, one fancies, with less
sanguine anticipations for herself; but the black disaster that rode on
with it brought her certain aids to the spirit, certain hopes of
herself. Laura's prompt replies, with their terrible margins and
painstaking solecisms, came to be things Miss Livingstone looked forward
to. She read them with a beating heart in the unconscious apprehension
of some revelation of improvement. She was quite unaware of it, but she
entertained toward the Simpsons an attitude of misgiving in this regard.

Hilda went on about her business. As usual, her business was important
and imperative; nothing was lightened for her this last day. She drove
about from place to place in the hot, slatternly city, putting more than
her usual vigour and directness into all she did. It seemed to her that
the sunlight burning on the tiles, pouring through the crowded streets,
had more than ever a vivid note; and so much spoke to her, came to her,
from the profuse and ingenuous life which streamed about her, that she
leaned a little forward to meet it with happy eyes and tender lips that
said, "I know. I see." She wa