MARGARET As he inserted his latch-key in the old-fashioned lock, Stephen remembered that his mother had instructed him not to be late because Margaret Blair was coming to spend the evening.

"It takes you so long to change that I believe you begin to dream as soon as you go to your room," she had added; and while he made his way hurriedly and softly up the stairs, he wondered how he could have so completely forgotten the girl whom he had always thought of vaguely as the one who would some day--some remote day probably--become his wife.

He was not in love with Margaret, and he believed, though one could never be sure, that she was not in love with him--that her fancy, if a preference so modest could be called by so capricious a name, was for the handsome young clergyman who read Browning with her every Tuesday afternoon.

But he was aware also that she would marry him if he asked her; he knew that the hearts of four formidable parents were set on the match; and in his past experience his mother's heart had invariably triumphed over his less intrepid resolves.

When Janet had said that the war had "spoiled" this carefully nurtured sentiment, she had described the failure with her usual accuracy.