long letter, and tell me all about yourself.  It is a long way to Paris.  But surely now you know I am still here, you will come and pay me a visit—­at least.  Everybody would be most glad to see you.  And I should be so proud and glad.  As I say, I am all alone.  Mr. Critchlow says I am to say there is a deal of money waiting for you.  You know he is the trustee.  There is the half-share of mother’s and also of Aunt Harriet’s, and it has been accumulating.  By the way, they are getting up a subscription for Miss Chetwynd, poor old thing.  Her sister is dead, and she is in poverty.  I have put myself down for L20.  Now, my dear sister, please do write to me at once.  You see it is still the old address.  I remain, my darling Sophia, with much love, your affectionate sister,

“Constance Povey.

“P.S.—­I should have written yesterday, but I was not fit.  Every time I sat down to write, I cried.”

“Of course,” said Sophia to Fossette, “she expects me to go to her, instead of her coming to me!  And yet who’s the busiest?”

But this observation was not serious.  It was merely a trifle of affectionate malicious embroidery that Sophia put on the edge of her deep satisfaction.  The very spirit of simple love seemed to emanate from the paper on which Constance had written.  And this spirit woke suddenly and completely Sophia’s love for Constance.  Constance!  At that moment there was assuredly for Sophia no creature in the world like Constance.  Constance personified for her the qualities of the Baines family.  Constance’s letter was a great letter, a perfect letter, perfect in its artlessness; the natural expression of the Baines character at its best.  Not an awkward reference in the whole of it!  No clumsy expression of surprise at anything that she, Sophia, had done, or failed to do!  No mention of Gerald!  Just a sublime acceptance of the situation as it was, and the assurance of undiminished love!  Tact?  No; it was something finer than tact!  Tact was conscious, skilful.  Sophia was certain that the notion of tactfulness had not entered Constance’s head.  Constance had simply written out of her heart.  And that was what made the letter so splendid.  Sophia was convinced that no one but a Baines could have written such a letter.  She felt that she must rise to the height of that letter, that she too must show her Baines blood.  And she went primly to her desk, and began to write (on private notepaper) in that imperious large hand of hers that was so different from Constance’s.  She began a little stiffly, but after a few lines her generous and passionate soul was responding freely to the appeal of Constance.  She asked that Mr. Critchlow should pay L20 for her to the Miss Chetwynd fund.  She spoke of her Pension and of Paris, and of her pleasure in Constance’s letter.  But she said nothing as to Gerald, nor as to the possibility of a visit to the Five Towns.  She finished the letter in a blaze of love, and passed from it as from a dream to the sterile banality of the daily life of the Pension Frensham, feeling that, compared to Constance’s affection, nothing else had any worth.