those sharp features. In ten or twelve years you can do as you please."

I thought, but did not say:--

"My dear aunt, but I shall do it _now_!"

A week passed by, while I pondered and worried, and then at last came a
"lead" from without. A morning dawned when Bridget brought my letters
with my early tea, and set them down on the table by my bed.

"Four letters this morning, and only one of the lot you'll be caring to
see."

Bridget takes a deep interest in my correspondence, and always
introduces a letter with a note of warning or congratulation: "That
bothering creature is worrying at you again!"

"There's a laugh you'll be having over Master George's fun!"

"You paid that bill before. Don't be letting them come over you with
their tricks!"

It is, of course, reprehensible behaviour on the part of a maid,
presumptuous, familiar, interfering; but Bridget is Bridget, and I might
as soon command her not to use her tongue, as to stop taking an interest
in anything that concerns "Herself". As a matter of fact, I don't try.
Servility, and decorum, and a machine-like respect are to be hired for
cash at any registry office; but Bridget's red-hot devotion, her
child-like, unshakable conviction that everything that Miss Evelyn does
and says, or doesn't say and doesn't do, is absolutely right--ah, that
is beyond price! No poor forms and ceremony shall stand between Bridget
and me!

I lifted the letters, and had no difficulty in selecting the one which
would "give me joy". Strangely enough, it was written by one of the
newest of my friends, one whose very existence had been unknown to me
two years before.

We had met at a summer hotel where Kathie and I chanced to be staying,
and never shall I forget my first sight of Charmion Fane as she trailed
into the dining-room and seated herself at a small table opposite our
own. She was so tall and pale and shadowy in the floating grey chiffon
cloak that covered her white dress, she lay back in her chair with such
languor, and drooped her heavy eyelids with an air of such superfine
indifference to her fellow-men, that Kathie and I decided then and there
that she was succumbing to the effects of a dangerous operation, and--
with care--might be expected to last six or eight weeks.

We held fast to this conclusion till the next morning, when we met our
invalid striding over the moors, clad in abbreviated tweeds, and the
manniest of hard felt hats. Kathie said that she