and want your advice and help badly. I would ask your sister, only
I know she is always busy.--Sincerely yours,

"AUDREY CRAVEN."

Audrey wrote on rough-edged paper, in the bold round hand they teach in
schools. She had modelled hers on another girl's, and she signed her
name with an enormous A and a flourish. People said there was a great
deal of character in her hand-writing.

Ted crammed the note hastily into his pocket, and did his best to hide
the radiance of his smile.

"It's only Miss Craven. I'm just going over for half an hour,--I'll be
back for tea."

And before Katherine had time to answer he was gone.

Ted's first thought as he entered Miss Craven's drawing-room was that
she was in the midst of a removal. The place was turned topsy-turvy.
Curtains had been taken down, ornaments removed from their shelves,
pictures from their hangings; and the grand piano stood where it had
never yet been allowed to stand, in a draught between the window and the
door. Tripping over a Persian rug, he saw that the floor was littered
with tapestries and rich stuffs of magnificent design. On his left was a
miscellaneous collection of brass and copper ware, on his right a heap
of shields and weapons of barbarous warfare. On all the tables and
cabinets there stood an array of Venetian glass, and statuettes in
bronze, marble, and terra-cotta. He was looking about for Miss Craven,
when that lady arose from a confused ocean of cushions and Oriental
drapery--Aphrodite in an "Art" tea-gown. She greeted him with childlike
effusion.

"At last! I'm so glad you've come--I was afraid you mightn't. Help me
out of this somehow--I'm simply distracted."

And she pointed to the floor with a gesture of despair.

"Yes; but what do you want me to do?"

"Why, to offer suggestions, advice, anything--only speak."

Ted looked about him, and his eyes rested on the grand piano. "Is it a
ball, a bazaar, or an auction? And are we awake or dreaming, alive or
dead?"

"Can't you see, Mr. Haviland?"

"Yes, I see a great many things. But what does it all mean?"

Audrey sank on to an ottoman, and answered slowly and incisively,
looking straight before her--

"It means that I'm sick of the hideousness of life, of the excruciating
lower middle-class arrangement of this room. I don't know how I've stood
it all these years. My soul must have been starved--stifled. I want to
live in another