ntly the vile
stationer's gewgaw that it was, Guy did not dare to approach Margaret in
the security of an old intimacy.

It was she, however, with her grace who healed the wound.

"You're not hurt with me for speaking about that little thing?" she
asked. "You see, you are in a way my brother."

"Margaret, you are a dear!"

And then recurred to him, as if from Ladingford Manor, the lines of
Christina Rossetti, which he half whispered to her:

"For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands."

They had the sharper emotion for Guy because he had neither brothers nor
sisters of his own; and that this lovely girl beside him on this
dreaming barge should be his sister gave to the landscape one more
incommunicable beauty.

And so all day they glided down the young Thames; and when Guy had sat
long enough with Margaret in the stern, he sat with Pauline at the prow;
and about twilight they reached Oxford, whence they came to Shipcot by
train and drove through five miles of moonlight back to Wychford.

AUGUST

Pauline and Guy with their formal engagement in sight were careful to
give no excuse for a postponement by abusing their privileges. The river
was now much overgrown with weeds, and in the last week of July rough
weather set in which kept them in the Rectory a good deal on the
occasions when they met. Guy, too, was harder at work than he had been
all the Summer. The fact of being presently engaged in the eyes of the
world was sufficiently exciting for Pauline to console her for the
shorter time spent with Guy. Moreover, she was so grateful to her family
for not opposing the publication of the engagement that she tried
particularly to impress them with the sameness of herself,
notwithstanding her being in love with Guy. It happened, therefore, that
the old manner of existence at the Rectory reasserted itself for a
while; the music in the evenings, the mornings in the garden,
everything, indeed, that could make the family suppose that she was set
securely in the heart of their united life.

"When you and Margaret marry," Monica announced, one afternoon when the
three sisters were in their nursery, "I really think I shall become a
nun."

"But we can't all leave Father and Mother!" Pauline exclaimed, shocked
at the deserted prospect.

"Now isn't that like people in love?" said Mo