ite so young again as
she had been before that red sunset sank into her soul.

There was a deeper light in her eyes; such tears as she had wept
clear the sight till life becomes a thing more distinct and
far-reaching.

Nellie and she went to church the first Sunday after their return.
Aldith was a few pews away, light-souled as ever, dressed in gay
attire, flashing smiling, coquettish glances across to the Courtneys'
pew, and the Grahams sitting just behind.

How far away Meg had grown from her! It seemed years since she
had been engrossed with the latest mode in hat trimming, the dip
of "umbrella" skirts, and the best method of making the hands
white. Years since she had tried a trembling 'prentice hand at
flirtations. Years, almost, since she had given the little blue
ribbon at Yarrahappini, that was doing more good than she
dreamed of.

Alan looked at her from his pew--the little figure in its sorrowful
black, the shining hair hanging in a plait no longer frizzed at the
end, the chastened droop of the young lips, the wistful sadness
of the blue eyes. He could hardly realize it was the little
scatterbrain girl who had written that letter, and stolen away
through the darkness to meet his graceless young brother.

He clasped her hand when church was over; his grey eyes, with the
quick moisture in them, made up for the clumsy stumbling words of
sympathy he tried to speak.

"Let us be friends always, Miss Meg," he said, as they parted at
the Misrule gate.

"Yes, let us," said Meg.

And the firm, frank friendship became a beautiful thing in both their
lives, strengthening Meg and making the boy gentler.

Pip became his laughing, high-spirited self again, as even the most
loving boy will, thanks to the merciful making of young hearts; but
he used to get sudden fits of depression at times, and disappear all
at once, in the midst of a game of cricket or football, or from
the table when the noise was at its highest.

Bunty presented to the world just as grimy a face as of old, and
hands even more grubby, for he had taken a mechanical turn of late,
and spent his spare moments in manufacturing printing machines--so
called--and fearful and wonderful engines, out of an old stove and
some pots and rusty frying-pans rescued from the rubbish heap.

But he did not tell quite so many stories in these days; that deep
sunset had stolen even into his young heart, and whenever he felt
inclined to say "I never, 'twasn't