of a colourless, worn woman, and her
consciousness of its unfitness showed in her small-featured face as she
came forward.

"Do you--recognise it, Betty?" she asked hesitatingly. "It was one of my
New York dresses. I put it on because--because----" and her stammering
ended helplessly.

"Because you wanted to remind me," Betty said. If she felt it easier to
begin with an excuse she should be provided with one.

Perhaps but for this readiness to fall into any tone she chose to adopt
Rosy might have endeavoured to carry her poor farce on, but as it was
she suddenly gave it up.

"I put it on because I have no other," she said. "We never have visitors
and I haven't dressed for dinner for so long that I seem to have nothing
left that is fit to wear. I dragged this out because it was better than
anything else. It was pretty once----" she gave a little laugh, "twelve
years ago. How long years seem! Was I--was I pretty, Betty--twelve years
ago?"

"Twelve years is not such a long time." Betty took her hand and drew her
to a sofa. "Let us sit down and talk about it."

"There is nothing much to talk about. This is it----" taking in the room
with a wave of her hand. "I am it. Ughtred is it."

"Then let us talk about England," was Bettina's light skim over the thin
ice.

A red spot grew on each of Lady Anstruthers' cheek bones and made her
faded eyes look intense.

"Let us talk about America," her little birdclaw of a hand clinging
feverishly. "Is New York still--still----"

"It is still there," Betty answered with one of the adorable smiles
which showed a deep dimple near her lip. "But it is much nearer England
than it used to be."

"Nearer!" The hand tightened as Rosy caught her breath.

Betty bent rather suddenly and kissed her. It was the easiest way of
hiding the look she knew had risen to her eyes. She began to talk gaily,
half laughingly.

"It is quite near," she said. "Don't you realise it? Americans swoop
over here by thousands every year. They come for business, they come for
pleasure, they come for rest. They cannot keep away. They come to buy
and sell--pictures and books and luxuries and lands. They come to give
and take. They are building a bridge from shore to shore of their work,
and their thoughts, and their plannings, out of the lives and souls of
them. It will be a great bridge and great things will pass over it."
She kissed the faded cheek again. She wanted to sweep Rosy away from the
dreariness