Cara was busy in the drawing-room next morning, arranging a basketful of spring flowers which had come from the Hill, when Oswald came in with his usual budget. He was light-hearted, she was very sad. Oswald was gay because of the triumph he foresaw, and Cara was doubly depressed because she felt that her depression was ungrateful to the kind aunts whom she had been so sorry to leave, though she was so unwilling to go back. Why was it that the thought of going home made her so miserable? she asked herself. Miss Cherry’s delusion about Oswald, which had almost imposed upon Cara herself, had floated all away from her mind, half in laughter half in shame, when she found out that Oswald’s object was to make her the confidant of his love for another girl, not to make love to her in her own person. Cara had been ashamed of the fancy which her aunt’s suggestion had put into her mind, but the _désillusion_ had been a relief--and a more sympathetic confidant could not have been. She was interested in every step of the nascent romance, eager to hear all about the romantic intercourse, consisting chiefly of looks and distant salutations, which he confided to her. No suspicion that she knew who his Agnes was had crossed Cara’s mind, for Agnes Burchell was just so much older than herself as to have removed her above the terms of intimacy which are so readily formed between country neighbours. It was Liddy, the third girl of the family, who was Cara’s contemporary, and it was to Miss Cherry that Agnes talked when she went to the Hill. But Cara was less interested than usual to-day; her mind was occupied with her own affairs, and that future which seemed, for the moment, so dim and deprived of all the light and brightness of life. When Oswald took the basket of crocuses out of her hand, and bid her to sit down and listen to him, she complied languidly, without any of the bright curiosity and interest which were so pleasant to him. At first, however, occupied by his own tale, he did not even notice this failure. He told her of all that had happened, of the sudden apparition of Sister Mary Jane, and the fright in which his companion had left him. Oswald told the story with a smile. It amused him as if it had happened, Cara said to herself, being in a state of mind to judge more harshly than usual, to someone else. ‘But it would not be pleasant for her,’ said Cara. ‘I don’t think she would laugh, Oswald. Even if there was nothing wrong in talking to you, she would feel as if there was when she saw the Sister. Do you think it is--quite--nice? That is a stupid word, I know, but it is the one that comes easiest; quite--quite--kind----?’ ‘To what, Cara?’