e said. "Perhaps it was Anabel Mere. She is a more
transparent sort of girl than Mildred, and she is more blond. And you
don't know her, Hector? I dare say it was she."

CHAPTER VI

I remained in London several weeks. I stayed because the MacNairns were
so good to me. I could not have told any one how I loved Mrs. MacNairn,
and how different everything seemed when I was with her. I was never shy
when we were together. There seemed to be no such thing as shyness in
the world. I was not shy with Mr. MacNairn, either. After I had sat
under the big apple-tree boughs in the walled garden a few times I
realized that I had begun to belong to somebody. Those two marvelous
people cared for me in that way--in a way that made me feel as if I
were a real girl, not merely a queer little awkward ghost in a far-away
castle which nobody wanted to visit because it was so dull and desolate
and far from London. They were so clever, and knew all the interesting
things in the world, but their cleverness and experience never
bewildered or overwhelmed me.

"You were born a wonderful little creature, and Angus Macayre has filled
your mind with strange, rich furnishings and marvelous color and form,"
Mrs. MacNairn actually said to me one day when we were sitting together
and she was holding my hand and softly, slowly patting it. She had a
way of doing that, and she had also a way of keeping me very near her
whenever she could. She said once that she liked to touch me now and
then to make sure that I was quite real and would not melt away. I did
not know then why she said it, but I understood afterward.

Sometimes we sat under the apple-tree until the long twilight deepened
into shadow, which closed round us, and a nightingale that lived in the
garden began to sing. We all three loved the nightingale, and felt as
though it knew that we were listening to it. It is a wonderful thing to
sit quite still listening to a bird singing in the dark, and to dare to
feel that while it sings it knows how your soul adores it. It is like a
kind of worship.

We had been sitting listening for quite a long time, and the nightingale
had just ceased and left the darkness an exquisite silence which fell
suddenly but softly as the last note dropped, when Mrs. MacNairn began
to talk for the first time of what she called The Fear.

I don't remember just how she began, and for a few minutes I did not
quite understand what she meant. But as she went on, and Mr.