ull,
on Dave's account, than about any of the hundred-and-one things Gwen had
shown her during her five-mile drive. When Gwen gave the direction:--"Go
on to Strides Cottage, Blencorn," and Blencorn, who had scarcely
condescended to look at the Bull, answered:--"Yes, my lady," her
interest on Dave's account was maintained, but on a rather different
line. She was, however, becoming rapidly too fatigued to entertain any
feelings of resentment against her rival, and none mixed with the
languid interest the prospect of seeing her aroused during the
three-minutes' drive from Farmer Jones's to Strides Cottage.

* * * * *

This story despairs of showing to the full the utter strangeness of the
position that was created by this meeting of old Maisie and old Phoebe,
each of whom for nearly half a century had thought the other dead. It is
forced to appeal to its reader to make an effort to help its feeble
presentations by its own powers of imagery.

Conceive that suddenly a voice that imposed belief on its hearers had
said to each of them:--"This is your sister of those long bygone
years--slain, for you, by a cunning lie; living on, and mourning for a
death that never was; dreaming, as you dreamed, of a slowly vanishing
past, vanishing so slowly that its characters might still be visible at
the end of the longest scroll of recorded life. Look upon her, and
recognise in that shrunken face the lips you kissed, the cheeks you
pressed to yours, the eye that laughed and gave back love or mockery!
Try to hear in that frail old voice the music of its speech in the years
gone by; ask for the song it knew so well the trick of. Try to caress
in those grey, thin old tresses the mass of gold from whose redundance
you cut the treasured locks you almost weep afresh to see and handle,
even now." Then try to imagine to yourself the outward seeming of its
hearers, always supposing them to understand. It is a large supposition,
but the dramatist would have to accept it, with the ladies in the stalls
getting up to go.

Are _you_ prepared to accept, off the stage, a snapshot recognition of
each other by the two old twins, and curtain? It is hard to conceive
that mere eyesight, and the hearing of a changed voice, could have
provoked such a result. However, it is not for the story to decide that
in every case it would be impossible. It can only record events as they
happened, however much interest might be gained by t