Cicely had been three weeks in the service of Mr. Wilmer Lucas, four weeks a resident of Beaconhite. Although it lacked three days of being a calendar month the time seemed to her to stretch indefinitely backward into such length, that she had to stop to reckon up how long it actually had been. New experiences were crowding upon her, filling each day with interests so absorbing that the hours sped by, yet left a residue of the effect of more than twice their duration. Cicely was conscious of changes wrought upon herself by these swiftly passing days, changes so far undefined, yet not the less perceptible. For one thing, her new friendship was proving interesting as none other had ever before interested her. Cicely had had many friends among the boys, and, later, among the young men of her acquaintance, but though they had been “jolly good fun,” as she put it, they were not especially interesting. She was easily the dominant one in every case; the chief interest afforded her by these youths was when they temporarily spoiled her theory of perfect comradeship between the sexes, which was devoid of sentiment, by falling in love with her, but this, although it interested her, displeased her. She invariably swung back into her faith in the possibility of a chum of the opposite sex, but it was annoying to find it so often a theory that failed only in its workings. In G. Rodney Moore, Cicely had a friend of a totally new sort. He was older than she was, for one thing; he had seen immensely more of the world than she had, for another; he had read more than she had, let alone than any of her previous male friends. Most of all, he had an easy certainty of himself; an amused toleration of her insufficiently grounded opinions; a ready wit; great charm of face, voice and manner, so that, for the first time, Cicely found herself by no means able to hold the ascendency over him with which she had set out dealing with him, which had always, heretofore, been hers in dealing with young men. And, being essentially feminine beneath her boyish ways, she liked the man who dominated, while he admired her. There was much of the excitement of exploration for her in advancing constantly farther into friendship with this man. Her work was also opening out new vistas to Cicely, daily demanding from her hitherto dormant capacity, skill of hand, but far more quickness of brain, judgment, discretion, all-around intelligence. It was transforming her day by day; although she did not definitely recognize this, yet its effect upon her was to increase the bewilderment of mind with which she was adjusting to new conditions, and to what was to prove the greatest experience of her life.