ight--Evelyn Wastneys is _not_ a suitable person to play good fairy to
good-looking widowers! If this one looked particularly helpless and
harassed for an hour at a stretch, and then asked her to marry him on
Tuesday week, she would not have the strength of mind to say no, however
much she dreaded the prospect. As he is a susceptible, appealing type
of a man, and tired to death of that housekeeper, and Evelyn has--she
really has!--a "way with her," it would probably have come to that in
the end. But Evelyn Harding may serenely do her best. She will never
be put to the test.

The little girls are called Winifred and Marion. They have long pale
faces, long fair hair, and charming dark-lashed eyes. Winifred looks
delicate, and has an insinuating little lisp; Marion, when amused, has a
deep, fat chuckle, which makes one long to hug her on the spot. They
are badly dressed, badly shod, their stockings lie in wrinkles all the
way up, but they look thorough little ladies despite of all, and "behave
as sich". They came to tea on Saturday, and we had hot scones, and jam
sandwiches, and cake, and biscuits, and a box of crackers containing
gorgeous rings and brooches and tie-pins and bracelets, and of the whole
party I honestly believe "Father" enjoyed himself the most. He had four
cups of tea, and ate steadily from every plate; and we all played games
together afterwards, in the most happy, domestic fashion. Quite
evidently he is a home lover, a man whose deepest interests will always
centre round his own fireside.

Poor little dead wife! It seems sad that she should be taken away,
while unhappy women like Mrs 19 live on and on. If the issues of life
and death were in mortal hands, how differently we should arrange
things! I know at this moment half a dozen weary old creatures whose
lives are no pleasure to themselves or to anyone else, but they live on,
while the young and the happy fall by the way. Oh, how many mysteries
there are around us! How wonderful, how absorbingly interesting it will
be, when the time comes, to hear the explanation of all that seems so
tangled to our present understanding! When I realise how uncertain life
is, I am all in a tingle to be up and doing, to make myself of real,
real use while I am still here. A married woman has her work cut out to
make a home; a real happy home is as big an achievement as any one can
wish, but when one is single and lonely--

Pause to shed a few self-pity