am glad he's coming back, Margaret. But oh, do tell me if you are
going to marry him."

Margaret would not answer, but Pauline, all of whose hopes were roseate
to-day, decided that Margaret had really made up her mind at last, and
she went up-stairs full of penitence for her neglect of Richard, but
determined to make up for it by the good news she would send both of
herself and of him.

WYCHFORD RECTORY, OXON,
_December_.

MY DEAR RICHARD,--I am sorry that I've not written to you for so
long, but I know you'll forgive me, because I have to think about
so many things. Margaret has just told me you are coming back in
April. Be sure it is April, because my birthday is on the first of
May, you know, and you must be in England for my birthday.
Margaret looked very happy when she said you were coming home.
Richard, I am sure that everything will be _perfect_. Guy's book
is finished, and perhaps it will be published in March. If it's
published early in March, I will send you a copy so that you can
read it on the steamer coming home. There are two poems about
Margaret, who was very sympathetic with Guy over me! That's one of
the reasons why I'm sure that everything will be perfect for you.
Guy wants to meet you very much. He says he admires action. That's
because I told him about your bridge. Your father and mother are
always very sweet to us when we go and have tea with them. Miss
Verney is going to wear caps. Birdwood asked if you would bring
him back a Goorcha's--is that the way to spell it?--a Goorcha's
knife because Godbold won't believe something he told him.
Birdwood said you were a grand young chap and were wasted out in
India. Father won a prize at Vincent Square for a yellow
gladiolus. It's been christened--now I've forgotten what, but
after somebody who had a golden throat. Guy's dog is a lamb. A
merry Christmas, and lots of love from

Your loving
PAULINE.

Pauline looked forward to Richard's return because she hoped that if
Margaret married him her own marriage to Guy would begin to appear more
feasible, it being at present almost too difficult to imagine anything
like marriage exploding upon the quietude of the Rectory. The return of
Richard, from the moment she eyed it in relation to her own affairs,
assumed an importance it had never possessed before when it was only an
ideal of child