When Freda came to see us a year or so later, soon after her return from India, she was not the same Freda. Such wide, sorrowful eyes, in a face the soft roundness of which had given way to piteous hollows and angles. We young ones were not much with her. We used to go away out of her hearing with the little boy, and have rare games, for in spite of his black clothes he was as full of fun as a kitten. Freda used to sit with Aline in her little room, silent for the most part; but one day I was sitting in the window-seat reading, when Freda broke silence suddenly. "I have been with you long enough, Aline. It is time for us to be going, Jacky and I. You have been good to keep us so long." "Oh, my dear," said Aline, rather shocked; "where would you be welcome, if not in your own home? I suppose you cannot stay with us altogether, as we would all have wished? It is not likely you would be content?" "Oh, no," said Freda, with a curious, unmirthful laugh, "it is not at all likely I should be content!" Aline looked hurt a little, but I thought Freda could not mean to be so unkind as the words seemed. However, I said nothing; probably they had forgotten my presence. After a minute or two, Aline said: "Of course, Sir John and Lady Hazeldine will want you to be with them--at least at first?" "I'm not going to the Hazeldines'," Freda said, shortly. "And what are your plans, then, dear?" "Mrs. Vincent, who was so good to my Jim, is coming home from India. She wants me to live with her. Her husband is dead, and she is sadder even than I am, for she has no child." "That will be a nice arrangement," said Aline; and I, who know all her ways, heard a ring of disappointment in her voice. I think she felt that Freda was going to make for herself a life in which we had no part. "You will set up a sweet little house together, with a garden perhaps," she said after a minute or two, "and a couple of little maids, and perhaps a tiny carriage? You must take care of yourself, for you don't look strong, Freda." "I shall be all right," said Freda, and again she laughed in that odd way. "Yes, I suppose Mrs. Vincent and I shall be very comfortable together." "I thank God every day, Freda, that you and your little boy are well provided for. You will not always be unhappy, dear; you are too young. There is much to make you glad yet in this world, though it has pleased God to take your dear husband. You will try and pluck up courage after you have left us, for your little boy's sake?" Freda turned away her head and said nothing.