'Was that all?' says Peggy, relieved. 'Well, a great many people go through life very creditably without it. I do not think I should have cried at that.' 'He was reading me some new poems of his,' continues Prue, not sensibly cheered by this reassurance; 'and when he had finished, he begged me to point out any faults I saw in them. And I told him what was the truth--that there were not any--that I thought them all one more beautiful than another; and then he looked rather vexed, and said he was afraid I had no critical faculty.' Peggy smiles, not very gaily. 'He had better show them to me next time.' 'Do you think that he would have been better pleased if I had picked holes in them?' inquires Prue anxiously. 'But how could I? They all seemed to me to be perfectly beautiful; I did not see any holes to pick.' 'Do you happen to have them by you?' asks Peggy. 'If so, we might look them over together, and provide ourselves with some criticisms to oblige him with when next he calls.' 'No--o,' replies Prue reluctantly; 'I have not. He took them away with him, I think--I suppose that he wanted to read them to somebody else--somebody more intelligent. Peggy'--after a pause--'do you suppose that Miss Hartley has a critical faculty?' The sisters are sitting, as usual after dinner, in their little hall. Prue stretched upon her favourite oak settle; Peggy on a stool at her feet. 'My dear,' with an impatient sigh, 'how can I tell?' 'I dare say it must be very tiresome to be always praised,' pursues Prue, after a pause, in a not very steady voice--'particularly if you are, as he is, of a nature that is always struggling up to a higher level--"agonising," as he said to-day, "after unrealisable ideals."' Peggy coughs. It passes instead of a remark. 'I have often thought how terribly insipid he must find me,' pursues Prue, with a painful humility. 'But I suppose, in point of fact, the more brilliant you yourself are, the more lenient you are to other people's stupidity; and, after all,' with a distressingly apparent effort at reassuring herself, 'he has known it all along. It is not as if it came fresh to him; and I do not think that I am any duller than I was last year. Of course, if I had profited by all the advantages I have had in his conversation, I ought to be much brighter; but at least I do not think that I am any duller--do you?' eagerly grasping her sister's arm as if to rivet her attention, which, in truth, is in no danger of wavering. 'No, dear; of course not,' very soothingly. 'Come and sit on the settle by me,' cries Prue restlessly; 'we can talk more comfortably so, and I can rest my head on your shoulder. It is such a nice roomy shoulder.' 'Yes, darling--yes.' There is a pause. The moon looks in from the garden. A startle-de-buzz booms by on the wings of the night, and once an elfin bat sweeps past on the congenial dusk.