"I'm glad she's gone," Connie exclaimed as the cab drove away and the last flutter of Grace's handkerchief had vanished. "Let us hope she will have a happy time with Lady Dashwood. But why didn't your dear relative fetch her as arranged? Why that telegram? I hope there is nothing wrong at the dower house?"

"Of course there is nothing wrong," Mary laughed. "It is not like you to imagine things. What is the matter with you this morning, Connie?"

Connie remarked tearfully that she did not know. For once in a way she was on the verge of tears. Perhaps she missed Grace, for her manner had changed, directly the cab was gone.

"Now I am going to know all about it," said Mary. "You are the dearest friend I have ever made as yet, and it hurts me for you to keep a secret from me."

"What a change!" Connie said, a smile flashing through her tears. "What has become of the cold, reserved girl that I met some days ago at Victoria Station? Well, I'll tell you what is the matter. You know that I lost those sketches the night Mrs. Speed went away and left us in the lurch. They were badly needed, and I could not supply them. They had to fake up some old blocks and it caused no end of trouble. The long and short of it is that last night I had a curt intimation that I need not expect to get any more work for the Wheezer. It means that my poor little weekly income has vanished for the present. It's very hard just at a time when----"

"Oh, my dear," Mary cried, "how dreadful! And this is why you kept up before----"

"Before Grace. I could not possibly tell her, it would have been hateful to spoil her pleasure like that. But it has been hard work, Mary. Two or three times today I have had to struggle to keep from positive blubbering. I hate to snivel, but I suppose we are all prone to that at times. What to do I don't know."

Mary looked up from the packs of postcards she was engaged upon.

"Please don't worry," she said, "it isn't as if we were penniless. I am certain that you will get something to do before long."

"My dear girl, don't forget that the rent and the bread and butter go on just the same. And don't forget either that whilst the grass grows the steed starves."

"Not when the other steed has plenty of oats to spare," Mary laughed. "What do you think of that for an epigram? If painting fails, I shall take to literature. I'm quite sure that I shall be as good an author as an artist. Don't think me hard or unsympathetic, Connie. I know how good you are, I know that you would cheerfully share your last shilling with me, little as I deserve it. And I am going to do the same by you. I have some three pounds left of the money I borrowed from that convenient relative at the pawnshop, and I calculate that I can raise quite two hundred pounds altogether. Within a short time you will find fresh work to do."

Connie's tears were falling freely now. The burst of grief seemed to do her good, for the sunny April smile flashed out again.

"You shall do as you like, dearest," she said. "Pride is a very sinful luxury for people in my position. And I had forgotten all about that Pandora's box of yours. It is just possible that on the strength of my Wheezer work I may get a commission from the Honeysuckle Weekly. I believe they pay a slightly better price than the other papers. Let us have an early lunch, and then I can go the round of the offices. Don't worry if I am back late. And you can have a good long afternoon at the postcards."

Mary had a long afternoon at the postcards indeed, for tea had been a thing of the past for some time, and as yet Connie had not returned. Her head was aching now and her hands were stiff with the toil. How hot and stifling it was, how different to the coolness of the dower house. And Grace was there by this time, doubtless.

Mary's day-dreams vanished suddenly at the sound of a cab outside. Connie stepped out of the cab, followed by a talk, manly figure in a frock coat. From his quiet air and manner Mary put the stranger down at once as a doctor. She had little time to speculate as to that, for she saw to her distress that Connie's hat was off and that her head was bandaged up with a handkerchief. She staggered as she reached the pavement, and would have fallen but for the man by her side. Mary flew to the door with words of quick sympathy on her lips. She could see a curious tender smile on Connie's lips; her face was red; her eyes were shining with some great happiness.

"Not much the matter," she said. "I got jumbled up in the Strand, and the side-slipping of a motor threw me under a dray. The wheels did not go over me, and I have not come home to die or anything of that kind. I got a blo............