’Meg, I’ll almost believe in Him if I get her. I shan’t care how soon I stop a bullet if I don’t.’ ’Oh, Charlie,’ I exclaimed, holding out my hands to him, ’don’t be diffident with her. You know Monica likes her mind made up for her. She always used to let you do it.’ ’No, Meg,’ he said, ’not about this. She must come to me willingly or not at all.’ But I am frightened for them. I know Monica’s irresolution. He will be diffident and seem almost indifferent because he wants her so desperately, and she will be ’difficult’ and will forget that it’s just his way. She won’t know her own mind till afterwards. Sometimes in these war days there is no ’afterwards.’ When we got back from the station Ross presented me with four threepenny bits. ’The charge for the delivery of each package from the station,’ he said, ’is threepence.’ ’How interesting,’ I replied, pocketing the money, ’but I’m not expecting any parcels.’ ’Oh, yes, you are, Meg, last night I wrote to four of our relatives and told them you were taking a house—an old one—and that contributions of seventeenth century furniture would be gratefully received.’ ’Ross, how could you?’ I gasped. ’Oh, it was quite simple,’ he said; ’I just wrote what I wanted to say on a piece of paper, folded it carefully and put it into an envelope, and stamped and posted it. Of course, it needs brain; I don’t suppose you could do it, Meg.’ ’Well, if you’ve really written——’ ’Do you doubt my word?’ said Ross indignantly. ’You’re a horribly ill-mannered, mercenary, money-grubbing, badly-behaved wretch, Ross; Nannie always said you should never ask for things you wanted.’ ’I asked for things _you_ wanted,’ said Ross, with the air of a martyr. This was so unanswerable that I changed the conversation hurriedly, and, although I feel that his behaviour is most reprehensible, and I don’t know that he’s written at all, at the same time it would be exciting if any parcels did arrive. And now I shall have to begin to think about furniture, if Michael decides to buy the cottage. It will be difficult to choose without him. I wish I had some of the old family things and bits of oak mother and daddy used to have, but everything was sold when he went out to be a missionary. There was a chest that used to stand in the hall at home. It had a lovely carved border, and there was a corner cupboard, too, that I specially loved because one side of it was longer than the other. And the ’chair of the nine devils.’ _How_ I would like that. It had eight little devils carved on it and the ninth was the person who sat in it! *CHAPTER XII* I am afraid Ross has been doing too much. He has had a dreadful lot of pain since Charlie left. On Sunday I took the law into my own hands and sent for the doctor. I ’got rowed’ by my brother for doing it, and by his doctor for not doing it before. I think that life is very hard on women.