Some of her friends (or perhaps acquaintance would be the truer word) had been known to describe Philippa Harford as an "odd girl," and if this indefinite adjective meant that she was somewhat different from the majority of young women of her generation, there was truth in the description. For while freedom of action and of speech are notably characteristic of the young of the present day, there was about her a reserve, one might almost say a dignity, beyond her years. Where the modern girl will cheerfully collect friends haphazard by the roadside, Philippa allowed very few to pass the line which divides the stream of acquaintanceship from the deep waters of friendship. There are, and always will be, some people who display to the world a formidable aspect, as it were a stone wall with a bristling row of broken bottles on the top, or an ugly notice board with injunctions, such as "Strictly Private," or "Keep off the Grass," but Philippa was not one of these. You might wander in her company along paths of pleasant conversation, through a garden where bloomed bright flowers of intelligence and humour, and it was only afterwards that you realised what in the enjoyment of the moment you had failed to notice, namely, that inside the garden a high hedge, which had appeared merely a pleasing background for the flowers, had completely hidden the part you most particularly wished to see, and that the paths had brought you out at the exact spot where you entered. It was just because this hedge of gentle reticence denied to a curious mob admission to the inner sanctuary of her thoughts, that they designated her as "odd." They found it impossible to know just what she meant and felt and thought. In their own parlance "they got no further." But it must be added that no one attempted to deny the existence of the inner sanctuary. In spite of this rather tantalising trait in her character she was popular--every one liked her, for her natural kindness of heart, combined with great charm of manner and more than ordinary good looks, made her gladly welcome wherever she went. She was an excellent person to confide in, for she accepted the confidences of other women with sympathetic and frequently helpful interest; but when it came to returning those confidences--well, that was quite a different matter. In her life Philippa had possessed few intimate friends, and the chief of them had been her father. From him she had inherited, with her dark hair and straight eyebrows, a certain direct outlook on life. It was not an attitude of superiority or even of conscious criticism, but more an instinct for the people and things which were, as she expressed it, "worth while," a keen desire for the very best, and a preference for doing without should that best be unobtainable.