le plainness. As
she had once told Diana: "I'm not beautiful, so I'm obliged to be good.
You're not compelled, by the same necessity, and I may yet see you
sliding down the primrose path, whereas I shall inevitably end my days
in the odour of sanctity--probably a parish worker to some celibate
vicar!"

The Rector and Joan were half-way through their breakfast when a light
step sounded in the hall outside, and a minute later the door flew open
to admit Diana.

"Good morning, dear people," she exclaimed gaily. "Am I late? It
looks like it from the devastated appearance of the bacon dish. Pobs,
you've eaten all the breakfast!" And, she dropped, a light kiss on the
top of the Rector's head. "Ugh! Your hair's all wet with sea-water.
Why don't you dry yourself when you take a bath, Pobs dear? I'll come
with you to-morrow--not to dry you, I mean, but just to bathe."

Stair surveyed her with a twinkle as he retrieved her plate of kidneys
and bacon from the hearth where it had been set down to keep hot.

"Diana, I regret to observe that your conversation lacks the flavour of
respectability demanded by your present circumstances," he remarked.
"I fear you'll never be an ornament to any clerical household."

"No. _Pas mon metier_. Respectability isn't in the least a _sine qua
non_ for a prima donna--far from it!"

Stair chuckled.

"To hear you talk, no one would imagine that in reality you were the
most conventional of prudes," he flung at her.

"Oh, but I'm growing out of it," she returned hopefully. "Yesterday,
for instance, I palled up with a perfectly strange young man. We
conversed together as though we had known each other all our lives,
shared the same table for dinner--"

"You didn't?" broke in Joan, a trifle shocked.

Diana nodded serenely.

"Indeed I did. And what was the reward of my misdeeds? Why, there he
was at hand to save me when the smash came!"

"Who was he?" asked Joan curiously. "Any one from this part of the
world?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," replied Diana. "I actually never
inquired to whom I was indebted for my life and the various other
trifles which he rescued for me from the wreck of our compartment. The
only clue I have is the handkerchief he bound round my arm. It's very
bluggy and it's marked M.E."

"M.E.," repeated the Rector. "Well, there must be plenty of M.E.'s in
the world. Did he get out at Craiford?"

"He didn't," said Diana. "No; at present he is 'w