‘Darling, isn’t that basket ready?’ said Sarratt, coming to his wife’s aid.  ’We’re losing the best of the day—­and if Bridget really won’t go with us—­’

Bridget frowned and rose.

‘How are the proofs getting on?’ said Sarratt, smiling, as she bade him a careless good-bye.

Bridget drew herself up.

‘I never talk about my work.’

‘I suppose that’s a good rule,’ he said doubtfully, ’especially now that there’s so much else to talk about.  The Russian news to-day is pretty bad!’

A dark look of anxiety crossed the young man’s face.  For it was the days of the great Russian retreat in Galicia and Poland, and every soldier looking on, knew with gnashing of teeth that the happenings in the East meant a long postponement of our own advance.

‘Oh, I never trouble about the war!’ said Bridget, with a half-contemptuous note in her voice that fairly set George Sarratt on fire.  He flushed violently, and Nelly looked at him in alarm.  But he said nothing.  Nelly however with a merry side-glance at him, unseen by Bridget, interposed to prevent him from escorting Bridget downstairs.  She went herself.  Most sisters would have dispensed with or omitted this small attention; but Nelly always treated Bridget with a certain ceremony.  When she returned, she threw her arms round George’s neck, half laughing, and half inclined to cry.

‘Oh, George, I do wish I had a nicer sister to give you!’ But George had entirely recovered himself.

‘We shall get on perfectly!’ he declared, kissing the soft head that leant against him.  ’Give me a little time, darling.  She’s new to me!—­I’m new to her.’

Nelly sighed, and went to put on her hat.  In her opinion it was no more easy to like Bridget after three years than three hours.  It was certain that she and George would never suit each other.  At the same time Nelly was quite conscious that she owed Bridget a good deal.  But for the fact that Bridget did the housekeeping, that Bridget saw to the investment of their small moneys, and had generally managed the business of their joint life, Nelly would not have been able to dream, and sketch, and read, as it was her delight to do.  It might be, as she had said to Sarratt, that Bridget managed because she liked managing.  All the same Nelly knew, not without some prickings of conscience as to her own dependence, that when George was gone, she would never be able to get on without Bridget.

Into what a world of delight the two plunged when they set forth!  The more it rains in the Westmorland country, the more heavenly are the days when the clouds forget to rain!  There were white flocks of them in the June sky as the new-married pair crossed the wooden bridge beyond the garden, leading to the further side of the lake, but they were sailing serene and sunlit in the blue, as though their whole business were to dapple the hills with blue and violet shadows, or sometimes to throw a dazzling reflection down into