"Has Miss Urquhart told you how kind she has been to me, and how hospitable? Why, I feel now as if I am welcome at any meal, and can run in and out with all my troubles. A lone woman is at such a disadvantage when she comes to a fresh place." Then Sidney spoke: "I can't help wondering why your daughter did not come with you. She would have been a great help, would she not?" "Poor Gavine! I would not spoil her good time by the drudgery of a move. When I am really established, and everything is pretty and comfortable, then I shall introduce my little daughter to you. And you will love her, as everyone does who sees her." She shook hands and left. Sidney gazed at Monica with a sparkle in her eyes. "Well? Your verdict?" "It's too soon to give it. I shouldn't say there was any harm in her." "No, of course there is none. But she doesn't like me. I know she doesn't!" "She realises you haven't taken to her." "I did at first, but she simply overlooks me if there are men in the room, and I honestly hate that style of woman. But, oh, I have to be so careful, Monnie, in guarding my tongue from criticism when Uncle Ted is near. And now Austin is getting nearly as bad. What will his mother say, I wonder, when she comes back? I shall be curious to see how she and Mrs. Norman take to each other. Now I must be off home. I feel I have relieved my mind by my outpouring. I am so thankful we haven't sweet purring things to say to each other when we meet, Monnie." Monica laughed. "Ah, well, I should be the better for some of her sweetness, I know. And, after all, Sidney, she is wise to make friends. And it is hard to start in a fresh place alone." Sidney walked home through the dusky mist feeling strangely depressed. But when she got in, her father claimed her attention, and she was her bright happy self again. "There is one heart she can never touch, and that is dad's," she told herself. "His heart is divided between my mother and myself." And then the next day her thoughts were turned from Mrs. Norman to Randolph Neville, for she got a letter from him. "DEAR MISS URQUHART, "I have written letters to you by the score, and torn them all up. One does foolish things on board ship to while away the time, but now I am going to write sense, if I can. I wonder if you have given me a thought since I left you? Thanning Dale seems a far-away country to me now, and yet if I shut my eyes I can see it all before me—your garden sloping down to the river, the Admiral reading in his chair under the old trees on the lawn, and you flitting about in your white gown with flecks of sunshine on your hair and a vast wealth of it in your eyes. Please forgive my personal remarks. That is why I have torn up so many of my effusions. I feared that you might consider them impertinent.