suddenly asked.

"Very happy," Maggie answered.

"Well, I hope you are," said Millicent. "I don't think that as a family
we're very good at making any one happy except ourselves. I think we're
very selfish."

"No, I don't think you're selfish," said Maggie, "but I think you're
sufficient for yourselves. I don't fancy you really want any one from
outside."

"No, I don't think the others do. I do though. You don't suppose I'm
going to stay in the Trenchard bosom for ever, do you? I'm not, I
assure you. But what you've said means that you don't really feel at
home with us."

"I don't think I want to feel at home with you," Maggie answered. "I
don't belong to any of you. Contrast us, for instance. You've got
everything--good looks, money, cleverness, position. You can get what
you like out of life. I've got nothing. I'm plain, poor, awkward,
uneducated--and yet you know I wouldn't change places with any one. I'd
rather be myself than any one alive."

"Yes, you would," said Millicent, nodding her head. "That's you all
over. I felt it the moment you came into the house. You're adventurous.
We're not. Katherine was adventurous for a moment when she married
Philip, but she soon slipped back again. But you'll do just what you
want to always."

"I shall have to," said Maggie, laughing. "There's no one else to do it
for me. It isn't only that I don't belong to you--I've never belonged
to any one, only one person--and he's gone now. I belong to him--and
he'll never come back."

"Were you frightfully in love?" asked Millie, deeply interested.

"Yes," said Maggie.

"He oughtn't to have gone away like that," said Millicent.

"Yes, he ought," said Maggie. "He was quite right. But don't let's
bother about that. I've got to find some place now where I can work.
The worst of it is I'm so ignorant. But there must be something that I
ran do."

"There's Paul," said Millie.

"What do you mean?" asked Maggie.

"Oh, he cares like anything for you. You must have noticed. It began
after the first time he met you. He was always asking about you. Of
course every one's noticed it."

"Cares for me," Maggie repeated.

"Yes, of course. He's wanted to marry for a long time. Tired of Grace
bossing him, I expect. That doesn't sound very polite to you, but I
know that he cares for you apart from that--for yourself, I mean. And I
expect Grace is tired of housekeeping."

Maggie's feelings were very strange. Why should he care about h