ide it, the red-morroco case Antony's
present had come in--left behind, by mistake, I suppose, when the
other gifts were packed away. The note he had written me with it was
still in its lid.

The paper felt icy to touch. I pulled it out and read it to the end.
Then I threw it in the fire. The sullen, charred sticks had not life
enough to burn it. I lit a match and watched the bright flames curl up
the chimney until all was destroyed. Then I fled. Here at least in the
cottage I will never come again. The room is full of ghosts.

On the whole, however, my visit did me good. I returned to Ledstone
with a firm determination to be more like grandmamma.

A telegram was awaiting me from Augustus, sent from his first
stopping-place. He had caught the measles, it appeared. The measles!
I thought only children got the measles.

Poor Augustus! He would make a bad patient. I was truly sorry, and
sent the most affectionate and sympathetic answer I could think of
to meet him at St. Helena.

I wrote to the war office, asking them please to send me any further
news when they received it. But the measles! It almost made me laugh.

II

Next day Lady Tilchester wrote and asked me to go to Harley. She had
heard I was alone, and would be so delighted to have me for a week,
she said.

I started two days afterwards. To see her would give me pleasure.

"How very white and thin you are looking, dear!" she said, as we sat
together in her sitting-room the first afternoon I arrived. "You are
not the same person as the very young girl who danced at the Yeomanry
ball in May. How old are you, Ambrosine?"

"I was twenty in October."

"Twenty years old! Only twenty years old, and with that sad face!
Nothing in life ought to make one sad at twenty. You look like a
piteous child. I could imagine Muriel, with a dead bird, or a set
of kittens to be drowned, looking as pathetic as you do."

"I know, I am ashamed of myself," I said, "Grandmamma would be so
angry with me if she were here."

"Well, now we are going to cheer you up. The Duke is coming on
Saturday. He is not married yet, you see."

"Oh, tell me how the affair went," I said, smiling. "It--it's--a month
ago we were at Myrlton."

"The silly girl preferred Luffy, but for the last weeks they both were
hanging on. Miss Trumpet and her aunt were staying at Claridge's, and
they tell me it was too ridiculous! Luffy lunched with them every day,
and Berty dined in the evening."