onstrued into an indication of
ill-health. He was awfully decent about it and suggested that I should
see a doctor. I told him I was all right, but he insisted, so I saw
Dr. Needham, and he told me I was run down and required bracing air.
'Mountain air would be better than the seaside,' he said. 'You haven't
friends in Scotland or Yorkshire, I suppose?' Then I thought of you.
'I have a friend who went wrong in her head about twelve months ago,' I
said (or words to that effect), 'and she ran away to the Yorkshire
moors. She might take me in if I could get off.' 'The very thing,' he
said. 'Will you have any difficulty with your employer?'

"'I don't think so,' I replied; 'not if it is really necessary. The
chief is a discriminating man, and I believe realises that my services
are invaluable, and he will put up with a little temporary
inconvenience in order to retain them permanently, I imagine.' You are
accustomed to my modesty, Grace, and will not be surprised that I spoke
with humility.

"Well, he smiled and said he would give me a certificate, so I took the
certificate and my departure and interviewed the chief in his den! It
was as I had anticipated. I was to get away at once. Ten days on the
moors would put the wine of life into my blood. That was theory. The
practical assumed the form of a five-pound note, which enables me to
play the part of the grand lady--a role for which I was designed by
nature, but which providence spitefully denied me. I stated my
intentions to the Rusty one, who coldly sent you her regards, but I
determined to take you by surprise, hoping to catch you unprepared and
unadorned, whereas you are neither the one nor the other. Then I
boarded the two o'clock Scotch express at St. Pancras, changed trains
at Airlee, and _me voila_! By the way, what about my bag?"

The bag came all right in due course, and in the days that followed
Rose and I gave ourselves up to enjoyment. It was like living one's
life twice over to share the delight she showed in her surroundings.
Fortunately I had got abreast of my work, and we ordinarily devoted our
afternoons to business and spent the mornings and evenings in Nature's
wonderland.

During those ten glorious days the sun worked overtime for our special
benefit, and put in seventeen hours with unfailing regularity. He
smiled so fiercely on Rose's cheeks that she would have justified her
godmother's choice if she had not preferred the hue of