sins were alone, and could
talk together without fear of interruption. Hope was all brightness and
animation, for she was experiencing at that moment a mysterious
lightness of heart which made her see everything through rose-coloured
spectacles. She admired everything--the grey stretches of the
landscape, the outline of the trees against the skies, the tumble-down
cottages by the roadside--while Avice listened to her animated talk with
a wistful smile on her face.

"You enjoy everything, Hope. How do you manage it? I wish I knew your
secret, for to me it all seems so stale and uninteresting. I do not
believe there is anything in the world which would make me so bright and
happy as you seem this morning."

"Nothing?"

"No--nothing. I enjoy some things more than others, of course; but,
honestly, for me the happiest moment of the day is when I lie down in
bed and feel that for eight hours at least I need do nothing but rest."

"Poor darling!" cried Hope sympathetically--"poor darling! That is a
matter of health, of course. But, Avice, don't you think that perhaps
if you--"

"Yes; if I what?"

Hope knitted her brows and looked distressed and nervous.

"Oh, I don't want to preach, but perhaps if you had something to do--if
you did not think quite so much of--I mean to say that if one is feeling
weak and listless, and has nothing to do, one goes on feeling worse and
worse. But if one gets interested--"

"Yes, I know what you mean; but how is one to get interested? That is
the question. I am not clever like you, and have no hobbies to occupy
my mind, and I get so bored with myself. Mother won't let me help her.
She thinks I am too delicate; and, apart from that, she is quick and I
am slow, and it would fidget her to see me droning through what she
could do in half the time. It is all very well to say, `Have an
interest.' Everything that seems new and exciting to you here is stale
to me. I am sick to death of living in public as we do, entertaining
one set of visitors after another, who all say the same things and amuse
themselves in the same way. I am not strong enough to go out `slumming'
or visiting hospitals, as some girls do. Where would _you_ find your
interest if you were in my place, Hope?"

"I'd find it somewhere," said Hope sturdily. "You have plenty of money
and plenty of time, and there must be a hundred ways of putting them to
account. I--I think I would try to help girls who are alone