gracefully among the fine wools from which she worked her “Jacobean” designs, and his mother knitting comforts for the poor in preparation for the winter which was beginning to make itself felt in keen airs and gusts of snow. On one of these occasions he stood for some minutes on the threshold, looking at them as they sat, their backs turned towards him, so that they were not at once aware of his presence. Diana’s head, crowned with its bright twists of hair, was for the moment the chief object of his close attention,--he noted its compact shape, and the line of the nape of the neck which carried it--a singularly strong and perfect line, if judged by classic methods. It denoted health and power, with something of pride,--and he studied it anatomically and physiologically with all the interest of a scholar. Suddenly she turned, and seeing him apparently waiting at the door, smiled a greeting. “Do you want me?” she asked. He advanced into the room. “Ought I to want you?” he counter-queried. “These are not working hours! If you were a British workman such an idea as my wanting you ‘out of time’ would never enter your head! As a British working _woman_, you should stipulate for the same privileges as a British working man.” He drew a chair to the fire, and as his mother looked at him with loving, welcoming eyes, he took her hand and kissed it. “Winter is at hand,” he continued, giving a stir with the poker to the blazing logs in the grate. “It is cold to-day--with the cold of the glaciers, and I hear that the snow blocks all the mountain passes. We are at the end of October--we must expect some bitter weather. But in Switzerland the cold is dry and bracing--it strengthens the nerves and muscles and improves the health. How do you stand a severe winter, Miss May?” “I have never thought about it,” she answered. “All seasons have beauty for me, and I have never suffered very much by either the cold or the heat. I think I have been more interested in other things.” He looked at her intently. “What other things?” She hesitated. A faint colour stole over her cheeks. “Well,--I hardly know how to express it--things of life and death. I have always been rather a suppressed sort of creature--with all my aims and wishes pent up,--pressed into a bottle, as it were, and corked tight!” She laughed, and went on. “Perhaps if the cork were drawn there might be an explosion! But, wrongly or rightly, I have judged myself as an atom of significance made _in_significant by circumstances and environment, and I have longed to make my ‘significance,’ however small, distinct and clear, even though it were only a pin’s point of meaning. If I said this to ordinary people, they would probably exclaim ‘How dull!’ and laugh at me for such an idea----”