hia was not so much in need of some one's
sympathy as were those younger girls, who had less work to do. A large
element in happiness is the satisfaction of one's craving for romance.
Now, there are three eras of romance in human life. The first is
childhood, when, even if the mind is not filled with fictitious fairy
tales which clothe nature, life is itself a fairy tale, a journey
through an unexplored region, an enterprise full of effort and wonder,
big with hope, an endless expectation, to which trivial realisations
seem large. It was in this era that the younger Rexford children, up to
Winifred, still lived; they built snow-men, half-expecting, when they
finished them in the gloaming, that the thing of their creation would
turn and pursue them; they learned to guide toboggans with a trailing
toe, and half dreamed that their steeds were alive when they felt them
bound and strain, so perfectly did they respond to the rider's will.
Sophia, again, had reached the third epoch of romance, when, at a
certain age, people make the discovery of the wondrous loveliness in the
face of the Lady Duty, and, putting a hand in hers, go onward, thinking
nothing hard because of her beauty. But it is admitted by all that there
is often a stage between these two, when all the romance of life is
summed up in the hackneyed word "love." The pretty girls who were
nicknamed Blue and Red had outgrown childhood, and they saw no
particular charm in work; they were very dull, and scarce knew why,
except that they half envied Eliza, who had gone to the hotel, and who,
it was well known, had a suitor in the person of Mr. Cyril Harkness, the
Philadelphian dentist.

Harkness had set up his consulting room in the hotel, but, for economy's
sake, he lodged himself in the old Harmon house that was just beyond
Captain Rexford's, on the same road. By this arrangement he passed the
latter house twice a day, but he never took any notice of Blue and Red.
They did not wish that he should--oh no, they were above that--but they
felt sure that Eliza was very silly to dislike him as she did,
and--well, between themselves, they found an infinite variety of things
to say concerning him, sayings emphasised by sweet little chuckles of
laughter, and not unfrequently wandering sighs. Sophia, at their age,
had had many suitors, this was the family tradition, and lo, upon their
own barren horizon there was only one pretty young man, and he only to
be looked at, as it wer