acinth's usually cold unimpulsive nature was strongly moved; there is
always something impressive and touching in the emotion of the aged. And
Lady Myrtle, one felt by instinct, was rarely demonstrative.

The girl looked up in her face, and there came a slight mistiness over
the hazel eyes, which her new old friend seemed to know so well--oh so
well!--the sight of them carried her back half a century; and, above
all, when Jacinth began to speak, she felt as if all the intervening
years were a dream, and that she was again a girl herself, listening to
the voice of Jacinth Moreland.

'I am so very pleased to come. I have been longing to see you again,'
said her young guest. Thornley had discreetly withdrawn. 'And how lovely
it is here! You don't know how I enjoy seeing flowers again like these.'

'It _is_ pretty, isn't it?' said Lady Myrtle, pleased by the frank
admiration. 'In cold weather I am sometimes shut up a good deal, and my
garden is my great delight. So I tried to make myself a little winter
garden, you see. I have had to stay up here the last few days, but I
hope to go about again as usual to-morrow. And of course I shall go down
to luncheon and dinner to-day. I waited to ask you to come, my dear,
till I was better. I could not have let you be all by yourself in the
dining-room.'

'Oh,' exclaimed Jacinth, with sudden compunction, 'I should have asked
if you were better. How could I forget?'

'Why, you have not been two minutes here, my dear child. And I wrote
that I was better. It was only a cold. But at my age, "only a cold" may
come to be a great deal, and I have got into the way of taking care of
myself, I scarcely know why; it is natural, I suppose, and after all,
however alone one is, life is a gift. We must not throw it away. I am
not _quite_ well yet'--she had coughed more than once while
speaking--'but the weather is milder again.'

'Yes,' said Jacinth, 'a sort of St Martin's summer. I hope,' she added
gently, 'you will let me wait upon you a little while I am here.
Wouldn't you like the door shut?'

Lady Myrtle smiled. She liked the allusion to St Martin's summer; it
seemed like a good omen. Was this bright young life, so strangely
associated with her own youth, to bring back some spring-time to her
winter?--was Jacinth to be a St Martin's summer to her?

'Thank you,' she said. 'Yes, please shut the outer door. Poor old
Thornley often thinks he has closed it when he hasn't; his hands are so
rh