m. Miss Amabel, too, was pleased, in her wistful
way that always seemed to be thanking you for making things come out
decently well. She had one big scheme: the building up of homespun
interests between old Addington and these new little aliens who didn't
know the Addington history or its mind and heart.

One night after a dancing class in her dining-room the girls went, with
pretty good-nights, and Anne with them. She was hurrying down town on
some forgotten errand, and refused Lydia's company. For Lydia was tired,
and left alone with Miss Amabel, she settled to an hour's laziness. She
knew Miss Amabel liked having her there, liked her perhaps better than
Anne, who was of the beautiful old Addington type and not so piquing.
Lydia had, across her good breeding, a bizarre other strain, not
bohemian, not gipsy, but of a creature who is and always will be, even
beyond youth, new to life. There were few conventions for Lydia. She did
not instinctively follow beaten paths. If the way looked feasible and
pleasant, she cut across.

"You're a little tired," said Miss Amabel, hesitating. She knew this was
violating the etiquette of dancing. To be tired, Anne said, and Lydia,
too, was because you hadn't the "method".

"It isn't the dancing," said Lydia at once, as Miss Amabel knew she
would.

"No. But you've seemed tired a good deal of the time lately. Does
anything worry you?"

"No," said Lydia soberly. She looked absent-minded, as if she sought
about for what did worry her.

"You don't think your father's working too hard, planting?"

"Oh, no! It's good for him. He gets frightfully tired. They both do. But
Farvie sleeps and eats and smokes. And laughs! That's Jeffrey. He can
always make Farvie laugh." She said the last rather wonderingly, because
she knew Jeffrey hadn't, so far as she had seen him, much light give and
take and certainly no hilarity of his own. "But I suppose," she added
wisely, as she had many times to herself, "Farvie's so pleased even to
look at him and think he's got him back."

Miss Amabel disposed a pillow more invitingly on the old sofa that had
spacious hollows in it, and Lydia obeyed the motion and lay down. It was
not, she thought, because she was tired. Only it would please Miss
Amabel. But the heart had gone out of her. If she looked as she felt,
she realised she must be wan. But it takes more than the sorrows of
youth to wash the colour out of it. She felt an impulse now to give
herself aw