When they came back Paddy was duly installed as dispenser in her uncle’s surgery; and her hours being nine to eleven and half-past five to eight, she was kept fairly busy. This was fortunate, as it left her little time to mope, as she would otherwise have done. For as the weeks sped by Paddy could not in any degree grow reconciled to London, and when they first returned from Seaforth it seemed more hideous to her than ever. She hated Shepherd’s Bush with all her strength, and secretly much missed the daily journey to Chancery Lane, which had at least been interesting. To this free-born mountain-child the cramped streets, the dingy rows of ugly little houses, the whole atmosphere of this London suburb, were positively repulsive; and she felt as if she were in a cage, against which she was ever beating and bruising her wings in a vain longing to escape. It was much the same to Eileen and her mother, only they were made in a less vigorous mould, and it was not so hard for them to bear up, helped as they were by a religion which was very real and very true. Paddy’s religion, it must be confessed, was chiefly her father. She stuck to her dispensing manfully because she had promised to be a good son, but deep in her heart she nursed a silent soreness against God that He had let things come to this pass. It was, perhaps, wrong of her, but no doubt that brave loyalty to her promise, covered much weakness in the eyes of Him who understandeth the secrets of every heart, their soreness as well as their patience. Also, when Eileen’s defences did break down, she suffered even more for the time being. Paddy could fling about and hurl out vigorous sarcasms, in which poor Shepherd’s Bush got even more than its due of opprobrium, but which relieved her feelings a good deal, while Eileen could only fight it out silently alone. And whereas the mountains and loch represented so much fun and adventure to Paddy, they had been actual friends and companions to Eileen, and no one knew how terribly she missed them, nor what an utter loneliness there was in her heart. At these times she could not but turn gladly to Jack’s occasional letters. They were not brilliant specimens of either penmanship or composition, but there was the true ring of the man himself about them, with his breeziness and humour and unmistakable sincerity. He made no direct allusion to anything that had passed between them before he left, filling them chiefly with descriptions of the free, wild life on an Argentine cattle ranch, but there was something in the way he put things, and in the fact of each letter being addressed to her, that whispered a secret message to Eileen’s heart. She was not ready for the message yet, but when she was very lonely it was a soothing thought and she let it linger in her mind gladly. Paddy, meanwhile, with true pertinacity, remained staunch to her old chum. What Jack had been to her he still remained, and seemed