PS, and hurl defiance at the Greyshot chaperons."

Rose laughed, and allowed herself to be borne off. She had been excited
before, now she was doubly excited, and Captain Golightly had the most
delicious step imaginable.

CHAPTER X. Hard at Work

Longing is God's fresh heavenward will
With our poor earthward striving;
We quench it that we may be still
Content with merely living;
But, would we learn that heart's full scope
Which we are hourly wronging,
Our lives must climb from hope to hope
And realize our longing. J. R. Lowell

Perhaps it was only natural that there should be that winter a good deal
of communication between the secularist's house in Guilford Terrace and
the clergyman's house in Guilford Square.

From the first Raeburn had taken a great fancy to Charles Osmond, and
now that Brian had become so closely connected with the memory of their
sudden bereavement, and had made himself almost one of them by his
silent, unobtrusive sympathy, and by his numberless acts of delicate
considerateness, a tie was necessarily formed which promised to deepen
into one of those close friendships that sometimes exist between two
entire families.

It was a bleak, chilly afternoon in March, when Charles Osmond,
returning from a long round of parish work, thought he would look in for
a few minutes at the Raeburns'; he had a proposal to make to Erica, some
fresh work which he thought might interest her. He rang the bell at the
now familiar door and was admitted; it carried him back to the day when
he had first called there and had been shown into the fire-lit room,
with the book-lined walls, and the pretty little girl curled up on the
rug, with her cat and her toasting fork. Time had brought many changes
since then. This evening he was again shown into the study, but this
time the gas was lighted, and there was no little girl upon the hearth
rug. Erica was sitting at her desk hard at work. Her face lighted up at
the sight of her visitor.

"Every one is out except me," she said, more brightly than he had heard
her speak since her return. "Did you really come to see me. How good of
you."

"But you are busy?" said Charles Osmond, glancing at the papers on the
desk. "Press work?"

"Yes, my first article," said Erica, "it is just finished; but if you'll
excuse me for one minute, I ought to correct it; the office boy will
call for it directly."

"Don't hurry; I will wait and g