"It will be very pleasant on the terrace, and in the kitchen-garden," she remarked, "but, of course, we must avoid the grass. Are not these shut-in lawns pretty? Through that arch, if it were light enough, you would have a glimpse of my flower-garden. I call it mine, because I give it my special supervision. Doreen takes more interest in the kitchen-garden, and when I boast of my roses and begonias, she is dilating on the excellence of her strawberries and tomatoes." "I think I should care most for the flower-garden," observed Waveney. And then, of her own accord, she began telling Miss Althea about the pensioners' little gardens, and the corporal's flowers. Althea listened with much interest, and then, little by little, her quiet questions and sympathetic manner induced Waveney to break through her shy reserve, and speak of her home. Althea soon found out all she wanted to know: the home that was so perfect in Waveney's eyes, the little warm nest that held all her dear ones, seemed meagre and bare to the elder woman, who had been used to luxury all her life, and had never had a want ungratified. As the girl talked on in a _naive_ way, all at once a vision rose before Althea's eyes of a brilliantly-lighted ball-room, and of a fair, boyish-looking man, with stephanotis in his buttonhole, standing before her with eager looks. "It is our valse, Althea, and I have been looking forward to it all the evening." And then--and then----But she started from her reverie with a quick feeling of shame. Why had these thoughts come to her? He was Dorothy's lover, not hers. Had he ever cared for her really? "It was all a mistake. It was not he who was to blame, it was I--I!" and even in the September darkness she smote her hands angrily together. The love had been in her imagination; it had never existed--never. She had bartered her warm woman's heart for a shadow, and alas, alas! it was not in Althea's nature to change. "If I love once, I love for ever," she had once said in a bitter moment to Doreen. How she repented that speech afterwards! "No; you do not understand, neither do I; but I think it is my nature to be faithful." When Althea roused from her brooding, she found that Waveney had become silent. "You were speaking of your sister, were you not?" she said, gently. "Some one told me," she continued, a little vaguely, "that she was very pretty."