"Well, we were good friends till I came away, and I thought I had seen the last of him. And then a week ago he turned up in town and I happened to run across him in the open street. I was staying with the Clarkes—one of the girls was being married. He asked me with beaming eyes whether I would help him choose a few carpets for his house. Said he had meant to come down and see me at Vi's—for that was the only address I'd given him—and he told me his little aunt was ill of bronchitis, and she had only rugs on a polished floor in her bedroom and he wanted to carpet her room from corner to corner and with carpet 'three inches thick.' It was no good laughing at him. He was in dead earnest, and we went off together, and he ordered me about as if I were a two-year-old, and stood me lunch at the 'Carlton.' And then we chose his carpets, and the shopman, of course, alluded to me as his 'lady.' When we came out, we walked in the Park, and he said he wanted me as his 'lady' for life! I was quite bowled over. I am no young girl, and, as you know, I've had my disillusion, but there's something about him I can't resist. You feel he has been everywhere and done everything and knows the world as the majority of us don't know it, and yet he has come back as simple and fresh and believing as any boy. The War taught him, he says, some of the best lessons in life, and he is going to pass on his lessons to me. And I tested myself, Rowena, when he had gone. I said to myself, 'If he lost all his money to-morrow, and his horses, would you be happy married to him?' And I told myself that I would follow him round the world with only a crust between us! So I have no qualms or misgivings. Of course, Vi is enchanted. She's seen him and likes him and the wedding is coming off next June." "So now my heart thumps madly when I realize that I shall be a close neighbour of yours. Only thirty or forty miles between us, isn't it? And his dear little aunt can stay with us, unless she would rather go back to her doll's house. The Whipper-in thinks she would like that best. Do you think I shall make him a good wife, Rowena? He is determined to make me a good woman. And I've come to the conclusion that the truly good people in this world must of necessity be the happiest, for they have the assurance and hope of a perfect life beyond the grave, and a very comforting one in this." "So, so—well, you raked my soul fore and aft when you talked to me, so in simple words I tell you that I've taken hold of the Pierced Hand, and believe It will hold me safe through all Eternity." "My love for always, my dear Shepherdess," "One of your grateful flock," "Di." Rowena read this to her husband. "I know she would not mind. It will show you that she is not so hard as we have thought her." "I will never think anyone hard again," said General Macdonald gravely, when his wife had finished reading.