rried," she thought to herself. "I
don't feel married at all. I'm not natural. If I were sitting on the
sand digging I'd be quite natural. No wonder Grace thinks me tiresome.
But how does one get older and grown up? What is one to do?"

She did not trust herself to go down to the sands again that summer.
The autumn came, the woods turned to gold, the sea was flurried with
rain, and the Church began to fill the horizon. The autumn and the
winter were the times of the Church's High Festival. Paul, as though he
were aware that he had, during these last months, been hovering about
strange places and peering into dark windows, busied himself about the
affairs of his parish with an energy that surprised every one.

Maggie was aware of a number of young women of whom before she had been
unconscious. Miss Carmichael, Misses Mary and Jane Bethel, Miss Clarice
Hendon, Miss Polly Jones ... some of these pretty girls, all of them
terribly modern, strident, self-assured, scornful, it seemed to Maggie.
At first she was frightened of them as she had never been frightened of
any one before. They did look at her, of course, as though they thought
her strange, and then they soon discovered that she knew nothing at all
about life.

Their two chief employments, woven in, as it were, to the web of their
church assistance, were Love and Mockery-flirtations, broken
engagements, refusals, acceptances, and, on the other hand, jokes about
everybody and everything. Maggie soon discovered that Grace was one of
their favourite Aunt Sallies; this made her very angry, and she showed
so plainly her indignation on the first occasion of their wit that they
never laughed at Grace in Maggie's presence again.

Maggie felt, after this, very tender and sympathetic towards Grace,
until she discovered that her good sister-in-law was quite unaware that
any one laughed at her and would have refused to believe it had she
been told. At the same time there went strangely with this confidence
an odd perpetual suspicion. Grace was for ever on guard against
laughter, and nothing made her more indignant than to come into a room
and see that people suddenly ceased their conversation. Maggie,
however, did try this autumn to establish friendly relations with
Grace. It seemed to her that it was the little things that were against
the friendliness rather than the big ones. How she seriously blamed
herself for an irritation that was really childish. Who, for instance,
a