Ann looked at her mother in silence for a minute, then she looked into the dancing flames. "As you say, it is amazing--I who have lost so much. And when you think of it, I haven't much to laugh at. I've got the sort of looks that go very fast, so I'll soon be old and ugly--but what about it"? "'I may never live to be old,' says she, 'For nobody knows their day....' And I've got work to do, and I've still got brothers, and I've got Charlotte and the children, and I've more friends than I sometimes know what to do with. It's an odd thing, but I do believe, Mother, that I'm happier now than when I was twenty and had all the world before me. Youth isn't really a very happy time. You want and want and you don't know what you want. As you get older you realise that you have _no right to bliss_, and must make the best of what you have got. Then you begin to enjoy things in a different way. Out of almost everything that happens there is some pleasure to be got if you look for it, and people are so funny and human and pitiful you can't be dull. Middle age brings its compensations, and, anyway, whether it does or not it is a most miserable business to be obsessed by one's own woes. The only thing to do is to stand a bit away from oneself and say, 'You miserable atom, what are you whining about? Do you suppose the eternal scheme of things is going to be altered because _you_ don't like it?'" Mrs. Douglas laughed rather ruefully. "You're a terribly bracing person, Ann; but I'm bound to confess that you practise what you preach." "But I've really no right to preach at all!" Ann said. "I always forget one thing, the most important of all. I've always been perfectly well, so I've no right to sit in judgment on people who struggle all their lives against ill-health. It is no credit to me--I who hardly know what it means to have a headache--to be equable and gay. When I think of some people we know, fighting all the time against such uneven odds, asking only for a chance to work and be happy in working, and knocked down time and again, yet always undefeated, I could go and bury my head ashamed. Don't ever listen to me, Mother, when I preach to you; squash me at once." "Well, I'll try to--but, Ann, there is one thing that worries me. Remember, I will not have you sacrifice your life to me." "No fear of that," said Ann airily. "There's nothing of the martyr about me." "That Mr. Philip Scott----" Mrs. Douglas hesitated. "Oh, him!" said Ann, "or, to be more grammatical, oh, he! I had a letter from him this morning--did I forget to show it you? He says he is to be at Birkshaw for Christmas." Ann stopped. "Well, Ann?" "Well, Mother?" "Don't be provoking, Ann. Is Mr. Scott anything to you?" Ann turned serene grey eyes to her mother. "Nothing," she said, "except a pleasant friend. That's all he wants to be, I'm sure." "But, Ann, don't you think..." "I never think, Mother..."