did. Although I didn't know anything in those days, I felt it about him

all the same."

Caroline suddenly saw Barbara with new eyes. She and Bunting had always been called 'the children,' and treated as such; and up till the time Barbara had left home, only three months before, she had been a tomboy, sexless almost, certainly with no appeal that would bring out the deeper feminine confidences. But she had always had a shrewd eye for character, and Caroline remembered that she had avoided Lassigny's society when he had stayed at the Abbey with a large party of guests, saying that there were other men she liked better.

But now she was a woman, with a woman's sensibilities, though her childish freedom of speech and some of her childish ways still clung to her. The very alteration in her appearance, slight as it had seemed at first, marked a stage in her growth. She stood by the window, fingering a chain she had taken off. In her pretty evening frock, nearly as long as Caroline's own, she seemed already to be 'grown up.' Caroline saw her as a companion to her such as Beatrix had been, one whom she could treat as an equal in understanding, if not in experience, and not as a much younger sister from whom many things must be kept.

"Of course I know what sort of woman that was he was with," Barbara went on. "You don't live in Paris even as I have to, without knowing the difference. I hate it all; and I hate him. Why couldn't B see?"

"I don't know," said Caroline slowly. "But I didn't see either."

Barbara looked up quickly, and a soft look came into her face. "You're so sweet and good, darling," she said. "You know, I believe that I see more in some ways than you and B--I don't mean horrid things like that, but all sorts of things--about people, I mean."

"I think you have more brains than either I or B," said Caroline, with a smile.

"I don't think it's brains so much. I don't know what it is, quite. I know I'm not so _nice_ as you, or B either."

They had begun to undress, helping one another. Caroline kissed her. "You're every bit as nice, darling, and much cleverer."

"I'm sharp, and amusing," she said. "Perhaps I'm rather too sharp. I shouldn't like people to be afraid of me because of my tongue. I'd much rather be like you, and have everybody love me. Cara, when B gets married, you and I will be a lot to each other, won't we? I shall be quite grown up by the time I come home for good; I'm nearly grown up now. I suppose I shall always be much the same with Bunting, but I want to be something different with you."

"Darling, it's just what I've been thinking about. I shall miss B awfully, when she goes; but I shall have you, to make up. And I think it's quite true that you can see more into things than I can--some things. Dad told me once I hadn't got a masculine brain."

"No, you're all feeling. But it's right feeling. I don't believe you would ever have fallen in love with Lassigny, though you didn't dislike him as I did. I'm never quite so sure about B. Of course I love her awfully, and she's very sweet, and good, too. But I think she wants somebody to look after her. Do you think Dick is the right man for her?"

"Why, don't you? It's you who can judge."

"Well, then, I do, on the whole. I think he'll want to be master, absolutely. He has that sort of strength. He wouldn't do for me, even if I loved him, and all that. I should want somebody I could be more equal with. But I think it will suit B--to adapt herself to what he wants. The only thing I'm not quite sure about is whether he'll give her exactly the sort of life she wants. He has his job and he is keen on it; and of course she won't take an _enormous_ interest in that, though she'll like to see him go up in it. Then he likes country life, and she doesn't particularly. She likes going about much more than you do. I don't quite see B settling down and living at Wilborough most of her life."

Caroline was rather struck by this view. "You've thought it out," she said.

"Yes, I like thinking things out. Of course I may be all wrong because I don't take all this _love_ business enough into account. That may alter everything."

Caroline laughed outright. "You think it's all tommy-rot, don't you?" she asked.

"Well, I know it can't be, really, because it seems to take the most sensible people. I suppose most of them get married because of it, at least in England. But I should _think_--I don't know--that the happiest husbands and wives are those that like the same sort of thing, not those that are most in love with each other to begin with."

"I used to think that," said Caroline. "I'm not sure that I do now. I have never loved anybody--in the way that B has, I mean--so perhaps I don't know more than you do about it. But I do think it ought to begin with that. I suppose marriage isn't just having a companion you like. If it were I shouldn't want to marry at all, because I have just the companionship I want at home."

"Francis Parry wanted to marry you, didn't he?"

"You're very sharp, darling," said Caroline with a smile. "I didn't know you'd noticed anything."

"You and B have always treated me rather too much like a baby. I haven't minded much, or perhaps you wouldn't have, for I should have talked to you about things more. But it's going to be different now. There are lots of things I shall want to talk to you about. I like Francis; but I'm rather glad you didn't marry him, all the same. I think he'd have made exactly the right husband for B, though."

Caroline laughed. "That's a new idea," she said. "Do you think Dick would have made exactly the right husband for me?"

"Well, yes, I do," was Barbara's rather surprising answer. "You'll be happier settled down, when you do marry."

"You don't settle down much as a sailor's wife."

"No, but he'll live at Wilborough by and bye, or his wife will. That would suit you. It would be like going on living at Abington. But Francis would live sometimes in London and sometimes in the country, and he and his wife would go about a lot. That's just what would suit B."

"Well, it just shows that love has most to do with it, after all," said Caroline. "I like Dick, too, but I should never want to marry him. If I had to marry either of them, I'd much rather marry Francis. And I believe that if anything were to happen to stop B marrying Dick, she'd feel it more than she did before."