ious, all ready to be opened.

She climbed the staircase and was shown into a room high and gaily
coloured and full of flowers. She saw the deep curtains, blue silk shot
with purple, the chairs of blue silk and a bowl of soft amber light
hanging from the ceiling. A mass of gold-red chrysanthemums flamed
against the curtains. Several people were gathered round a tea-table
near the fire.

She stood lost on the thick purple carpet under the amber light, all
too brilliant for her. She had come from a world of darkness, owl-like
she must blink before the blaze. Some one came forward to her, some one
so kind and comforting, so easy and unsurprised that Maggie suddenly
felt herself steadied as though a friend had put an arm around her.
Before she had felt: "This light--I am shabby." Now she felt, "I am
with friendly people." She was surprised at the way that she was
suddenly at her ease.

Mrs. Mark was not beautiful, but she had soft liquid eyes and her hand
that held Maggie's was firm and warm and strong.

"Let me introduce you," said Mrs. Mark. "That is Miss Trenchard, and
that Mr. Trenchard. This is my husband. Philip, this is Miss Cardinal."

Miss Trenchard must be forty, Maggie thought. She was plump and
thick-set, with a warm smile. Then Mr. Trenchard was a clergyman--he
would be stout were he not so broad. His face was red, his hair snowy
white, but he did not look old.

He smiled at Maggie as though he had known her all his life. Then there
was Mr. Mark, who was stocky and thick, and reminded Maggie of Martin,
although his face was quite different, he looked much cleverer and not
such a boy; he was not, in fact, a boy at all. "I'm sure he thinks too
hard," decided Maggie, who had habits of making up her mind at once
about people.

"Well, there's no one to be frightened about here," she decided. And
indeed there was not! It was as though they had all some especial
reason for being nice to her. Perhaps they saw that she was not in her
own world here. And yet they did not make her feel that. She drank in
the differences with great gulps of appreciation, but it was not they
who insisted.

Here were light and colour and space above all--rest. Nothing was about
to happen, no threat over their heads that the roof would fall beneath
one's feet, that the floor would sink. No sudden catching of the breath
at the opening of a door, no hesitation about climbing the stairs, no
surveillance by the watching Thomas, no dista