ask him to give her a job. She
flushed crimson and added quickly: "I shall find a job all right. A
friend of mine is looking round for me."

He turned to her, smiling, and his tone was slightly more familiar than
it would have been to a girl of his ordinary acquaintance. "I see.
The friend I saw you with at the dance. Well, I hope he'll find what
you want."

"I have no doubt he will, thank you," said Caroline.

Wilson was silent for a few minutes. "Look here," he said, "I think we
have a spare machine at the office that I could lend you for a time to
practise on. You must have practice."

Then he waited complacently for her to swing round towards him--as she
did--her eyes and voice filled with surprised gratitude: for he was
getting on well in the world himself, and he liked sometimes to feel
what a good-hearted fellow he was, in spite of it.

"Oh, that's all right," he said. "But I am sorry you have to leave
Miss Wilson."

"So am I, in a way. But you must look after yourself in these days,"
said Caroline, repeating her formula. "Things aren't like they used to
be." She paused. "My goodness, I'm glad they aren't! Fancy if I had
had to be another Aunt Ellen all my life."

He laughed, pleased with himself and her. "Well, I must own that I'm
glad I was not born into a stagnant world."

A sense of power--of vitality heightened by the stormy times in which
they lived, ran through them both as they spoke. It was rather like
the feeling of a strong swimmer in a roughish sea, with fitful sunshine
and little breakers far out towards the horizon.

By this time they had reached the Cottage and Caroline went in to
announce Wilson's arrival. Mrs. Bradford was still reading her paper,
but Miss Ethel had not yet returned from her errand to see if the
workmen were still working at the new houses.

"I can't think," said Mrs. Bradford, "what Ethel means by going on like
this. She just ran out with a shawl round her, and has been absent
three-quarters of an hour. I told her the men had stopped work, but
she would go to see for herself. I am afraid she may have fallen over
a brick or something in the fog." She turned to Caroline. "I wish you
would just go and see."

Caroline went out at once and Wilson followed her with a word to Mrs.
Bradford. As they crossed the garden the privet hedge loomed like a
wall, and above it could be seen the dim outline of brickwork left
jaggedly unfinished. Caroline stumbl