ford Abbey was alive) Bob had been with him. He was glad
of an excuse to go back and look for the dog in those now consecrated
arbors. There the robin still sang his rather pensive tune; and there
from a high ash-bough a missel-thrush, wearing full ermine of the
Spring, saluted the vestal day.

FEBRUARY

Pauline started to Oxford with Monica, feeling rather disappointed she
had not seen Guy before she went; for Margaret had come home with news
of having walked with him to Fairfield, and it was tantalizing, indeed a
little disturbing, to leave him behind with Margaret.

"Nothing is said to Margaret," Pauline protested at lunch, "when _she_
goes out for a walk with Guy. Father, don't you think it's unfair?"

"Well, darling Pauline," interrupted Mrs. Grey, with an anxious glance
towards her second daughter, "you see, Margaret is in a way engaged."

"I'm not engaged," Margaret declared.

"But I'm asking Father," Pauline persisted. "Father, don't you think
it's unfair?"

The Rector was turning over the pages of a seed-catalogue and answered
Pauline's question with that engaging irrelevancy to which his family
and parish were accustomed.

"It's disgraceful for these people to offer seeds of _Incarvillea olgae_.
My dears, you remember that anemic magenta brute, the color of a
washed-out shirt? Ah," he sighed, "I wish they'd get that yellow
_Incarvillea_ over. I am tempted to fancy it might be as good as _Tecoma
Smithii_, and, of course, coming from that Yang-tse-kiang country, it
would be hardy."

"Francis dear!" Pauline cried. "Don't you think it's unfair?"

"Pauline," said her mother, "you must not call your father Francis in
the dining-room."

The Rector, oblivious of everything, continued to turn slowly the pages
of his catalogue.

"Oh, bother going to Oxford!" said Monica, looking out of the window to
where Janet with frozen breath listened for the omnibus under gathering
snow-clouds.

"Now, really," Pauline exclaimed, diverted from her complaint of
Margaret's behavior by another injustice, "isn't Monica too bad? She's
grumbling, though it was she who made the plan to stay with the
Strettons. And though they're her friends and not mine, I've been made
to go, too."

"Well, I hate staying with people," Monica explained.

"So do I," said Pauline. "And you accepted the invitation for me that
day you were in Oxford buying Christmas presents, when you forgot to buy
the patience-cards I wanted to give