“Never, never, _never_!” repeated Agneta, stroking the tail of Elizabeth’s white gown affectionately and nodding at every word. She was sitting on the curly black hearth-rug, a small vivid creature in a crimson dress. Agneta Mainwaring was little and dark, passionate, earnest, and frivolous. A creature of variable moods and intense affections, steadfast only where she loved. Elizabeth was watching the firelight upon the big square sapphire ring which she always wore. She looked up from it now and smiled at Agneta, just a smile of the eyes. “Well, I am here,” she said, and Agneta went on stroking, and exclaimed: “Oh, it’s so good to have you.” “The world not been going nicely?” said Elizabeth. Agneta frowned. “Oh, so, so. Really, Lizabeth, being engaged to an explorer is the _devil_. Sometimes I get a letter two days running, and sometimes I don’t get one for two months, and I’ve just been doing the two months’ stretch.” “Then,” said Elizabeth, “you’ll soon be getting two letters together, Neta.” “Oh, well, I did get one this morning, or I shouldn’t be talking about it,” Agneta flushed and laughed, then frowned again. Three little wrinkles appeared upon her nose. “What worries me is that I am such a hopeless materialist about letters. Letters are rank materialism. Rank. Two people as much in touch with one another as Douglas and I oughtn’t to need letters. I’ve no business to be dependent on them. We ought to be able to reach one another without them. Of course we do—_really_—but we ought to know that we are doing it. We ought to be conscious of it. I’ve no business to be dependent on wretched bits of paper, and miserable penfuls of ink. I ought to be able to do without them. And I’m a blatant materialist. I can’t.” Elizabeth laughed a little. “I shouldn’t worry, if I were you. It’ll all come. You’ll get past letters when you’re ready to get past them. I don’t think your materialism is of a very heavy order. It will go away if you don’t fuss over it. We’ll all get past letters in time.” Agneta tossed her head. “Oh, I don’t suppose there’ll be any letters in heaven,” she said. “I’m sure I trust not. My idea is that we shall sit on nice comfy clouds, and play at telephones with thought-waves.” Louis shut his book with a bang. “Really, Agneta, if that isn’t materialism.” He came over and sat down on the hearth-rug beside his sister. They were not at all alike. Where Agneta was small, Louis was large. Her hair and eyes were black, and his of a dark reddish-brown. “I didn’t know you were listening,” she said. “Well, I wasn’t. I just heard, and I give you fair warning, Agneta, that if there are going to be telephones in your heaven, I’m going somewhere else. I shall have had enough of them here. Hear the bells, the silver bells, the tintinabulation that so musically swells. From the bells, bells, bells, bells—bells, bells, bells.” Agneta first pulled Louis’s hair, and then put her fingers in her ears.