and disinterested person, and once or twice she had an hysterical desire to applaud a good stroke of her mother’s or prompt a backward speech of her uncle’s.  Mr. Gillat, of course, did nothing suitable; he never did.  He kept up a preternaturally cheerful appearance during the meal, stopping his mouth with large corks of bread, answering “Ah, yes, yes, just so,” indiscriminately whenever he was spoken to, and starting three separate conversations on the weather on his own account.  As soon as the table was cleared, he fled into the back kitchen, shut himself in with the dishes, and was seen no more.  The others remained in the sitting-room and talked things over, arranging plans for the future and for the immediate present.  And when the time came and the conveyance was brought to the gate, they set out on the homeward journey together.  Johnny did not come out of the kitchen to say good-bye; only Julia came to the gate.

Mr. Ponsonby was going back home; Mr. Frazer and Mrs. Polkington were going with him to spend the night in town and go on westwards the next morning.  Mr. Frazer was anxious to get back to his parish, and Mrs. Polkington to her daughter, who was expecting her first baby shortly.  It was this expected event which prevented the young rector from asking Julia to stay with him and Violet until such time as she and her mother could settle somewhere together.  It was this same event which prevented Mrs. Polkington from remaining at White’s Cottage and sharing Julia’s solitude until their plans were settled.  All this was explained to Julia in the best Polkington manner and she seemed quite satisfied with the explanation.  Mr. Ponsonby had to be perforce; there seemed no alternative; all the same he was not quite pleased.  It was all sensible enough, of course, only as he saw Julia standing at the gate in the November afternoon, he did not quite like it.

“Look here,” he said shortly, “you shut up this place here, send Mr. Gillat to his friends, or his rooms, or wherever he came from, and come to me.  You can come and make your home with me, and welcome, till things are settled; there’s plenty of room.”

This was a good deal for Mr. Ponsonby to say, considering what an annoyance the Polkington family had been to him, how—­not without wisdom—­he had set his face against letting them into his house for more than twenty-four hours at a stretch, and how much this particular member had thwarted and exasperated him at their last meeting.  Julia recognised this and recognised also the kindness of the brusque suggestion.  She thanked him warmly for the offer though she refused it, assuring him that she and Johnny would be all right at the cottage.

“We do not find it lonely,” she said; “we are quite happy here, happier than anywhere else, I think.”