nk God, I have got you back."

She brushed aside the sentiment, since it was a thing she did not always
approve of.

"Come away in and have your tea. John, leave Mary to carry up Joan's
boxes; she will get Dick to help her; they are too heavy for you. Your
uncle is getting old," she went on, talking brusquely as she helped
Joan off with her coat, "he feels things these days."

"I haven't been away more than a year, Aunt Janet," laughed Joan; "you
talk as if it had been centuries."

"It has seemed long," the other woman answered; her eyes were hungry on
the girl's face as if she sought for something that kept eluding her. "A
year is a long time to people of our age."

"Dear, silly, old Aunt Janet." Joan hugged her. "You are not a second
older nor the tiniest fragment different to what you used to be. I know
you don't like being hugged; it makes you untidy; but you have simply
got to be just once more."

"You always were harum-scarum," remonstrated Aunt Janet, under this
outburst. She did not, however, offer any real objection and they went
into the drawing-room hand-in-hand.

A small, thin lady rose to greet them at their entrance and Joan was
introduced to Miss Abercrombie. Everything about Miss Abercrombie,
except her size, seemed to denote strength--strength of purpose,
strength of will, strength of love and hate. She gave Joan the
impression--and hers was a face that demanded study, Joan found herself
looking at it again and again--of having come through great battles
against fate. And if she had not won--the tell-tale lines of discontent
that hung about her mouth did not betoken victory--at least she had not
been absolutely defeated. She had carried the banner of her convictions
through thick and thin.

Joan was roused to a sudden curiosity to know what those convictions
were and a desire to have the same courage granted to herself. It gave
her a thrill of pleasure to hear that Miss Abercrombie would be staying
on for some time. She was a schoolmistress, it appeared, only just
lately health had interfered with her duties and it was then that Aunt
Janet had persuaded her, after many attempts, to take a real holiday and
spend it at Wrotham.

"Sheer vice on my part, agreeing," Miss Abercrombie told Joan with a
laugh; "but everyone argued with me all at once and I succumbed."

"Just in time," Aunt Janet reminded her; "I was going to have given up
asking you; even friendship has its limits."

They had tea i