rofton
in her precise, old-fashioned way. "As we have mentioned money, I should
like to know, my dear, how you are situated? I was afraid from something
Cecil told me last time he and I met that you would be very poorly left."

She stopped speaking, and there followed a long pause. Enid Crofton was
instinctively glad that she was seated with her back to the window. She
was afraid lest her face should betray her surprise and discomfiture at
the question. And yet, what more natural than that her well-to-do,
kind-hearted sister-in-law should wish to know how she, Enid, was now
situated?

Cecil Crofton's widow was not what ordinary people would have called a
clever woman, but during the whole of her short life she had studied how
to please, cajole, and yes--deceive, the men and women about her.
Unfortunately for her, Alice Crofton was a type of woman with whom she
had never before been brought in contact; and something deep within her
told her that she had better stick as close to the truth as was
reasonably possible with this shrewd spinster who was, in some ways, so
disconcertingly like what Enid Crofton's late husband had been, in the
days when he had been a forlorn girl-widow's protecting friend and ardent
admirer.

Yet, even so, she began with a lie: "When my mother died last year she
left me a little money. I thought it wise to spend it in getting this
house, and in settling down here." She said the words in a very low
voice, and as Miss Crofton said nothing for a moment, she added
timidly:--"I do hope that you think I did right? I know people think
it wrong to use capital, but the War has changed everything, including
money, and one simply can't get along at all without paying out sums
which before the War would have seemed dreadful."

"That's very true," said Miss Crofton finally.

Enid, feeling on sure ground now, went on: "Why, I had to pay a premium
of L200 for the lease of this little house. But I'm told I could get that
again--even after living for a year or two in it."

Miss Crofton began looking about her with a doubtful air: "I suppose you
mean to spend the winter here," she said musingly, "and then let the
house each summer?"

"Yes," said Enid, "that is my idea."

As a matter of fact, she had never thought of doing such a thing, though
she saw the point of it, now that it was put by her sister-in-law. She
hoped, however, that long before next summer her future would be settled
on most agreeable li