ring sat there.
Albeit a little creature, she was tall enough to have seen out without
even rising on tip-toe,--it was the sheer pleasure of doing what no one
could now stop her doing which prompted the action.

And then again she sighed. The immediate past rose before her, frowning,
though the old past tittered. She hung her head, ashamed of her
levity--and next her reflection in an opposite mirror kindled it afresh.
How comical she looked perched aloft with bare feet hanging down, like a
small white bird upon a rail! What a nice roost she had found--and it
would be nicer still if she sat sideways, with her back to the
shutters,--so, and her feet against the opposite shutters--so! The
broad, smooth seat would be an ideal reading place for summer evenings,
when the sun crept round to that side of the house, and began to
descend, as she could remember it did, over the ridge of beech trees
which belted the park below.

She could lock her door, of course. The room was her own, and even Sue
could not expect to dominate over what went on within her own room.
Besides--besides, she had almost forgotten that she was no longer under
Sue's thrall, and that yesterday Sue had observed a gentle deference
towards her.

That might pass--she hoped it would. If only she could be on the old
terms,--and yet not on the old terms! If only she might be Leo, and yet
not Leo! She tried to puzzle out the situation.

She knew indeed what she did not want, but could not define with any
exactitude what she did. Three years of affluence and independence had
to a certain extent left their mark, and she could not but own that it
would be unpalateable to find herself again in leading-strings. At
Deeside when a matter came under discussion, as often as not, Godfrey
would say, "Please yourself, little wife,"--or, if not, the little wife
was sure to be charmed with his decision. He was so much older and
wiser, that whatever he decreed was safe to be satisfactory in the long
run.

But her father and sisters would most certainly not make her pleasure
their chief aim and object; consequently it was as well perhaps--a sigh
of relief--that she could not be ordered about and have the law laid
down to her as of yore.

And yet, even this would be better, infinitely better, than to be kept
at arm's-length, and made to feel that she had neither part nor lot in
the home life she had returned to share. For instance, if she were late
for breakfast----What? Wh