lling all at once. "I wish you
wouldn't! I can't bear to hear it. Just think of how I might have
enjoyed myself, and then to think that--that I can't go, and that I
shall never live any other life than this!"

Ralph opened his round Saxon eyes, in a manner slightly expressive of
general dissatisfaction.

"Why, you're crying!" he said. "Confound crying. You know I don't cry
because I can't go to Lincolnshire. You girls are always crying about
something. Joanna and Elin cry if their shoes are shabby or their gloves
burst out. A fellow never thinks of crying. If he can't get the thing he
wants, he pitches in, and does without, or else makes something out of
wood that looks like it."

Theo said no more. A summons from the kitchen came to her just then. Pam
was busy with the tea-service, and the boys were hungry--so she must go
and help.

Pamela glanced up at her sharply as she entered, but she did not speak.
She had borne disappointments often enough, and had lived over them to
become seemingly a trifle callous to their bitterness in others, and, as
I have said, she was prone to silence. But it may be that she was not so
callous after all, for at least Theo fancied that her occasional
speeches were less sharp, and certainly she uttered no reproof to-night.
She was grave enough, however, and even more silent than usual, as she
poured out the tea for the boys. A shadow of thoughtfulness rested on
her thin sharp face, and the faint, growing lines were almost deepened;
but she did not "snap," as the children called it; and Theo was thankful
for the change.

It was not late when the children went to bed, but it was very late when
Pamela followed them; and when she went up-stairs, she was so
preoccupied as to appear almost absent-minded. She went to her room and
locked the door, after her usual fashion; but that she did not retire
was evident to one pair of listening ears at least. In the adjoining
bedroom, where the girls slept, Theo lay awake, and could hear her every
movement. She was walking to and fro, and the sounds of opening drawers
and turned keys came through the wall every moment. Pamela had
unaccountable secret ways, Joanna always said. Her room was a sanctuary,
which the boldest did not dare to violate lightly. There were closets
and boxes there, whose contents were reserved for her own eyes alone,
and questions regarding them seldom met with any satisfactory answer.
She was turning over these possessions to-ni