“Am I?” The young widow smiled. “I feel young, it is true; but I am twenty-eight to-day, Janet, and it will soon be ten years since my wedding-day. It doesn’t seem like ten years, does it, since we drove up to that great cold church in Mayfair? Do you remember how nervous I was, and how I shivered? But I was so young--only just out of the schoolroom; and poor Mr. Stonor was thirty; he seemed dreadfully old to me then. Do you remember, too, how my sister Olive pitied me for having to stand before the altar with a man with mutton-chop whiskers? Poor Denis! he retained those mutton-chop whiskers to the last.” She glanced at a photograph which stood on her escritoire. Judging by his portrait, Mr. Stonor could scarcely have been the kind of man to attract the fancy of a young and pretty girl; but he had been considered a suitable match for Lady Marjorie, and her parents had hurried on the marriage almost before she had even realized the fact of her engagement. Janet nodded. “Ay, I remember as well as can be,” she answered, shaking out the folds of a shimmering evening dress. “Didn’t I deck you out for the wedding myself, my lady? I shall never forget the bother I had with that French mam’selle who wanted to make you look like a doll.” She hung up the gown in a wardrobe, and continued significantly, “Maybe I shall have to dress your ladyship once again for a wedding? Pardon me if it’s a liberty I’m taking, but----” She hesitated. “Well?” said her mistress, trying not to look conscious. “What do you mean?” “Mr. Karne----?” Lady Marjorie paused in the act of clasping a bracelet on her wrist; and looked up at her old nurse with an enigmatical expression, half pleased, half shy, on her bright face. “What of Mr. Karne, nursie?” she queried softly. “Ay, my lady, what need to ask? Do you think I haven’t noticed the love-light in your eyes when you’ve spoken of him, or when he’s been anywhere near; or the little bit of white heather I’ve found under your pillow, which he has given you the night before? Folks say the Highlands is the place for romance, and I’m close on believing it. Anyway, I shall be mightily mistaken if there’s not a wedding before long!” But the mistress shook her head, whilst a look as of pain came into her eyes. “No, Janet,” she said quietly. “You are mistaken. Mr. Karne and I are very good friends, but he pays no more attention to me than he would to any other woman who happened to be his hostess.” “Yet he gave you the white heather, my lady?” “Yes, he gave me the white heather; but what of that? He did not tell me to put it behind my pillow--that was just a silly fancy of mine. We women are such fools, Janet. We have such an inordinate craving for love, that we magnify the slightest attention of any man for whom we possess regard, until we vainly imagine that we are really loved by him. That is what I’ve been doing--giving way to imagination. I’ve been indulging in the romantic day-dreams of a girl of seventeen.”