But she is the happiest woman in Germany at this moment, happier far than Vicki, for she sees with her older eyes the immense advantages that are to be Vicki's who sees at present nothing at all but Joey. And then the deliciousness of being able to write to all those relations grown of late so supercilious, to Cousin Mienchen who came and played the rich, and tell them the glorious news. Vicki basks in the sunshine of a mother's love again, and never hears a cross word. Good things are showered down on her, presents, pettings, admiration, all those charming things that every girl should enjoy once before her pretty girlhood has gone. It is the most delightful experience to see a family in the very act of receiving a stroke of luck. Strokes of luck, especially of these dimensions, are so very rare. It is like being present at a pantomime that doesn't leave off, and watching the good fairy touching one gray dull unhappy thing after another into radiance and smiles. But I lose my friends, for they go to Berlin almost immediately, and from there to Manchester on a visit to Mr. Collins, a visit during which the business part of the marriage is to be settled. Also, and naturally, we lose Joey. This is rather a blow, just as we had begun so pleasantly to roll in his money, but where Vicki goes he goes too, and so Papa and I will soon be left again alone on our mountain, face to face with vegetarian economies. Well, it has been a pleasant interlude, and I who first saw Vicki steeped in despair, red-eyed, piteous, slighted, talked about, shall see her at last departing down the hill arrayed in glory as with a garment. Then I shall turn back, when the last whisk of her shining skirts has gleamed round the bend of the road, to my own business, to the sober trudging along the row of days allotted me, to the making of economies, the reading of good books, the practice of abstract excellences, the pruning of my soul. My soul, I must say, has had some vigorous prunings. It ought by now to be of an admirable sturdiness. You yourself once lopped off a most luxuriant growth that was, I agree, best away, and now these buds of friendship, of easier circumstances, are going to be nipped off too, and when they are gone what will be left, I wonder, but the uncompromising and the rugged? Is it possible I am so base as to be envious? In spite of my real pleasure I can't shut out a certain wistfulness, a certain little pang, and exactly what kind of wistfulness it is and exactly what kind of pang I don't well know unless it is envy. Vicki's lot is the last one I would choose, yet it makes me wistful. It includes Joey, yet I feel a little pang. This is very odd; for Joey as a husband, a person from whom you cannot get away, would be rather more than I could suffer with any show of gladness. How then can I be envious? Of course if Joey knew what I am writing he would thrust an incredulous tongue in his cheek, wink a sceptical eye, and mutter some