brilliant young man whom
she had given her heart to could have changed or degenerated in any way
seemed absurd to her. Winifred, however, went on again.

"There's another point," she said. "If he's still the same, which
isn't likely, there has certainly been a change in you. You have
learned to see things more clearly, and acquired a different standard
from the one you had then. One can't help growing, and as one grows
one looks for more. One is no longer pleased with the same things;
it's inevitable."

She broke off for a moment, and her voice grew gentler.

"Well," she added, "I've done my duty in trying to point this out to
you, and now there's only another thing to say: since you're clearly
bent on going, I'm going out with you."

Agatha looked astonished, but there was a suggestion of relief in her
expression, for the two had been firm friends and had faced a good deal
together.

"Oh," she said, "that gets over the one difficulty."

Winifred made a little whimsical gesture. "I'm not quite sure that it
does. The difficulty will probably begin when I arrive in Canada, but
I'm a rather capable person, and I believe they don't pay one ninepence
a thousand words in Winnipeg. Besides, I could keep the books at a
store or hotel, and at the very worst Gregory could, perhaps, find a
husband for me. Women, one understands, are after all held in some
estimation in that country. Perhaps there's a man out there who would
treat even a little, plain, vixenish-tempered person with a turned-up
nose decently."

Crossing the room again she banged the cover down on the typewriter,
and then turned to Agatha with a wide gesture and a suggestion of
haziness in her eyes.

"Anyway, I'm very tired of this one. It would all be intolerable when
you went away."

Agatha stretched out a hand and drew her down beside her. She, at
least, no longer feared adverse fortune and loneliness, and she was
filled with a gentle compassion, for she knew how hard a fight this
girl had made, and part at least of what she had borne.

"My dear," she said, "we will go together."

Then she opened the second letter, which she had forgotten in the
meanwhile.

"They want me to stay at the Grange for a few weeks," she said, and
smiled. "An hour ago I felt crushed and beaten--and now, though my
voice has probably gone for good, I don't seem to mind. Isn't it
almost bewilderingly curious that both these letters should have come
to sweep my