all be her second mother."

"Yes! I'd like this one to have my name, and she _is_ mine, for I
wanted her, and you didn't. Remember that, if you please. No one pays
one penny piece for anything this baby wears, or wants, or learns, but
her Mother Vanna. I'm going to have a _real_ claim, not only sentiment.
She's going to mean a great, great deal in my life!"

Jean smiled, well content. For herself it would be a relief to be freed
from extra expense; and she realised that in giving her consent she was
enriching rather than impoverishing her friend's life. And so little
Vanna adopted a second mother.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THE INDIAN MAIL.

Two years had passed since Piers Rendall had left England, and still
there came no word of his return. Vanna heard from him regularly every
mail, letters as long, as intimate, as tender as during the first month
after his sailing, yet gradually there dawned in them a difference which
made itself surely, increasingly felt. What was it? In the depths of
her own heart, where alone the change was admitted, Vanna pondered the
question, but could find no reply. The first zest of interest and
occupation in a new world had died an inevitable death; that was natural
enough and could raise no surprise. The effects of a hot climate were
beginning to make themselves felt, he had been overworked,
overstrained--natural again; but in this case the remedy lay in his own
hands. Why did he not use it? Vanna had never allowed herself to ask
one questioning word on the subject of Piers's return; but she could not
avoid knowing that the junior partner whose place he had taken was
entirely recovered, and most anxious to return to his post. Old Mrs
Rendall, too, was growing sadly impatient, and, on the rare occasions
when they met, treated Vanna with frigid disapproval. It was this
girl's doing that her son was homeless and exiled--deprived of the joys
of manhood. There was some mystery about this long, dragging
engagement--a mystery which had been purposely concealed, a mystery
which in some inexplicable fashion referred to Vanna herself. What
could it be? The consciousness of this underlying curiosity had been
one of Vanna's greatest trials in her social intercourse during the last
few years, and its presence heightened the ever-growing longing for
Piers's return. The evening of mail-day often found her depressed
rather than cheered, though the three closely written sheets had ar