me for tea?"

Audrey nodded, and, with a sigh of contentment, turned up the winding road
which would presently lead her out on the moor.

Granny Carlyle's visit was over, and it was as she and her father were
turning away from the station after seeing her off, that there had come to
her suddenly a great desire to be alone, to be out on the great, wide,
open, silent moor, where she could think and think without fear of
interruption.

At home there was so little time for thought, and she had so many things
to think about. Only yesterday granny had said: "Well, Audrey, and are
you coming back to me when the year is up?" And Audrey, shocked at the
thrill of dismay the mere suggestion sent through her, had tried to tell
her as gently and kindly as possible, that she could not be spared from
home, at any rate, until Joan was some years older.

"Even when mother gets about again, she will not be fit for hard work,"
she explained hurriedly, "and, of course, there is a lot of hard work.
Father says we can't possibly keep another servant, for there will soon be
the governess to pay, as well as Mary and Job Toms."

"I know, child, I know," granny answered, almost sadly. "I scarcely
expected to be able to have you." And Audrey, feeling a little
uncomfortable lest she should have even suspected her changed feelings,
had again been struck by her aged and fragile look, the weariness in her
eyes, and in her voice, and had been troubled by it.

It had troubled her, too, ever since, but she did not know what she could
do. Indeed, she knew that she could not do anything, and that was saddest
of all.

Up on the moor she threw herself down on a bed of heather, and with only
the bees, and the larks, and the little westerly breeze for company, tried
to think the matter out. And soon the breeze blew some of her worries
away, and the sun and the birds' songs between them so raised her spirits
that she found courage to face things more hopefully and trustfully.
"I can't alter things," she sighed, "I can only do the best I know, or
what seems best."

Presently remembrance of her play came back to her. For the last week or
two she had been so busy, and her mind so occupied with other things,
she had really not had time to worry about it, and now: "There are only
three days more to wait!" she cried. "Only three days more. I wonder how
I shall first know? Will they write? or shall I see it in the papers?
or--or what? And how sha