But Phillis explained it was only an hour they had come to spend. "And when we have seen Mrs Masters, will you let Kitty show Miss Preston the great cellars where you store your wine? she does not feel quite satisfied about the vintage yet." It was not difficult for Miss Grey to find some further excuse for getting Bice alone. She had not seen the upper storey of the house, where there were great bare-looking bedrooms and sitting-rooms, a studio, laundries, all sorts of places. The girl's room had a wonderful carved marble bas-relief over the fireplace, and a charming ceiling, bright and fantastic, but otherwise all the furniture was old and the greater part shabby. Phillis glanced at it with little attention; there was something she wanted to say, and she was not quick at turning a conversation to a desired point. It was Bice who unconsciously led to it. "When we are in Rome," she had said, and then she looked quickly at Phillis--"But then you will be married?" she said in a low voice. Phillis thought she was prepared, and yet at the words the colour rushed up to the roots of her hair. "That is at an end," she said very hurriedly. "We are not going to marry. It was settled before anyone had thought enough about it, and thinking has made us change our minds. Forget that you ever heard that it was to be." How fast her heart beat! How stiffly the syllables seemed to issue from her mouth. And yet she had meant to tell her quietly and calmly, to use quite different words. There was a silence in which the wind drove the loose branch of some creeper against the window, and in which Bice looked at Phillis. She looked and smiled. Strange to say, at this moment she was the most composed of the two, and Phillis was deeply mortified that it should be so. But all that Bice said was-- "That is a pity. But I don't suppose I shall be able to forget." "It is not a pity if it saves either of us from unhappiness," said Phillis, with much earnestness. "Oh, I hope you will never be unhappy. It is so very miserable," Bice said, dropping her hands with a little gesture of despair. Her change of expression seemed to put them again into their right positions. Phillis, who had been annoyed at her own agitation and at the incredulous manner of the other girl, felt her pity, her sympathy growing up again as warm as ever. If Bice and Jack loved each other, as was surely the case, then she would not shrink. She smiled in her turn, but looked steadily out of the window. "There are many sorts of unhappiness," she said gently. "Some come so quietly that we have time to prepare and almost change their nature. And others are like sharp and sudden storms which seem to sweep us away, but are soon over, and then the skies are as smiling again as ever."