"Oh, and I'd really rather you didn't say my nature was beautiful," Pauline protested. "Truthfully, Monica darling, it's a very ugly nature indeed, and I'm afraid it's getting uglier every day." Her sister's cloistral smile flickered upon the scene like the wan February sunlight. "I do hope Guy really appreciates you," was what she said. "See how the sparrows have pulled the crocuses into ribbons," Pauline exclaimed. And so that Monica could not talk to her any more, she hailed her father, who was wandering along towards the house on the other side of the lawn. When he sauntered across to them she pointed out the destructiveness of the sparrows. "Ah, well, my dear," he chuckled, "most florists are worse." "Perhaps _I'm_ a florist," Monica whispered, "and Guy may be only a mischievous sparrow." Pauline smiled at Monica and took her arm gratefully and affectionately. "We shall have all the daffs gone before we know where we are," said the Rector. "Maximus is out under the oaks. And King Alfred is just going to turn down his buds." "Dear King Alfred," said Pauline. "How glad I shall be to say good morning to him again!" Yes, all the daffodils would soon be here and then gone; and beyond this austere afternoon already she could fancy a smell of March winds. After Monica's question it was no longer possible for Pauline when she was alone to avoid facing the problem of Guy's attitude towards religion. The repression of her anxiety on this point had only increased the force of it when it was set free like this to compete with, and, in fact, overshadow all other cares. Looking back to her earliest thoughts of the world as it would one day affect herself, she remembered how, if she had ever imagined some one in love with her, she had always created a figure whose faith would be an eternal and joyful contemplation. She had never invented for herself a marriage with some one merely good-looking or rich or endowed with any of the romantic attributes that young girls were supposed to award their ideals, as her cousins would say, of men. When Guy entered her life, the only gift he brought her for which she was at all prepared was the conviction of his faith. This indeed was his spiritual and mental reality for her; the rest of him was a figment, a dream that might pass suddenly away. The visit of his father had given her a more clearly defined assurance of his existence on earth, but his faith had been the heart of the immortal substance of her love for Guy. The endlessness of their union was always present in her thoughts, the ultimate consolation of whatever delays they might be called upon to endure. Very often, even at the beginning of the engagement, Guy had frightened her sometimes by his indifference to immortality--sometimes by his harping upon the swift flight of youth, sometimes by his manifest indulgence of her creed. All these doubts, however, of his sympathy were allayed by his apparently deliberate pleasure in worship.