his self-control, no matter what happened. Nothing ever surprised him. Even when the word had come from England that two sudden deaths had brought the baronetcy to him, together with an old house and a respectable income, he had shown no surprise. He had merely turned from the cablegram in his hand and remarked: "You had better begin packing our bags at once, Lady Buckley. We're going home." Heavens, what a start it had given her! To be addressed as "Lady Buckley" in that cool tone, without a syllable of preparation. She had not known whether to laugh or cry. She had never ceased to be grateful that she had done neither, but had replied with undismayed dignity: "You will need new flannels for the sea voyage, Sir Edwin." . . . Lady Buckley! How the title had always stuck in her mother's throat! How disagreeable it was of her mother, always pretending that she could not remember her name! Speaking of her to friends as "my daughter, Lady Bunkley"—or perhaps "Bilgeley." If her mother had not been a Court she would have called it ill-bred. But, of course, the Courts were like that. Nicholas was very much like that. So overbearing. He always seemed to think that he and that dreadful wife of his—Millicent—had been of more importance in England than she and Edwin had been. She was sure of that because of the jocular tone he used about the little circle the Buckleys had moved in. Well, at any rate it had been a much better behaved circle than the horsy one wherein he and Millicent had splurged and lost everything!
She thought of England. How she longed to be back there! She thought of the hedgerows, the beds of geraniums about her own house (she did hope the tenants were keeping things in order), the song of the linnets on the moist sweet air, her friends. She had been away from all these things for a year, and it seemed like two. But it was her duty to remain in Canada till her mother's death. Surely Mama—well, she was a hundred and one. It almost frightened Augusta . . . what if Mama were to live for ever! But then, no one lived for ever!
She put on her flannelette nightdress, buttoned up to
