"So you are really, really going to do it, Gerty?"

"Yes, really, Con."

It was the day before the sale, and the two girls, Gertrude Lorimer and Constance Devonshire were walking round the garden together for the last time. It had been a day of farewells. Only an hour ago the unfortunate Fan had rolled off to Lancaster Gate in a brougham belonging to the house of Pratt. Lucy was now steaming on her way to the north with Mr. Russel; and upstairs Phyllis was packing her boxes before setting out for Queen's Gate with Constance and her sister.

"If it hadn't been for Mr. Russel," went on Gertrude, with enthusiasm, "the whole thing would have fallen through. Of course, all the kind, common-sense people opposed the scheme tooth and nail; Mr. Russel told me in confidence that he had no belief in common sense; that I was to remember that, before trusting myself to him in any respect."

"Well, I don't think that particularly reassuring myself."

Gertrude laughed.

"At least, he has justified it in his own case. Delightful person! he actually appeared here in the flesh, the very day after he wrote. Common sense would never have done such a thing as that."

"You are very intolerant, Gertrude."

"Oh, I hope not! Well, Mr. Russel insisted on going straight to the studio, and examining our apparatus and our work. He turned over everything, remained immersed, as it were, in photographs for such a long time, and was throughout so silent and so serious, that I grew frightened. At last, looking up, he said brusquely: 'This is good work.' He talked to us very seriously after that. Pointed out to us the inevitable risks, the chances of failure which would attend such an undertaking as ours; but wound up by saying that it was by no means a preposterous one, and that for his part, his motto through life had always been, 'nothing venture, nothing have.'"

"Evidently a person after your own heart, Gerty."

"He added, that our best plan would be, if possible, to buy the good-will of some small business; but, as we could not afford to wait, and as our apparatus was very good as far as it went, we must not be discouraged if no opportunity of doing so presented itself, but had better start in business on our own account. Moreover, he says, if the worst comes to the worst, we should always be able to get employment as assistant photographers."

"But, Gerty, why not do that at first? You would be so much more likely to succeed in business afterwards," said Conny, for her part no opponent of common sense; and who, despite much superficial frivolity, was at heart a shrewd, far-seeing daughter of the City.

"If I said that one was life and the other death," answered Gertrude, with her charming smile, "you would perhaps consider the remark unworthy a woman of business. And yet I am not sure that it does not state my case as well as any other. We want a home and an occupation, Conny; a real, living occupation. Think of little Phyllis, for instance, trudging by herself to some great shop in all weathers and seasons!"

"Little Phyllis! She is bigger than any of you, and quite able to take care of herself."

"I wish—it sounds unsisterly—that she were not so very good-looking."

"It's a good thing there's no person of the other sex to hear you, Gerty. You would be made a text for a sermon at once."

"'Felines and Feminines,' or something of the sort? But here is Phyllis herself."

Cool, careless, and debonair, the youngest Miss Lorimer advanced towards them; the April sunshine reflected in her eyes; the tints of the blossoms outrivalled in her cheeks.

"My dear Gertrude," she said, patronisingly, "do you know that it is twelve o'clock, that my boxes are packed and locked, and that not a rag of your own is put away?"

Gertrude explained that she did not intend leaving the house till the afternoon, but that the other two were to go on at once to Queen's Gate, and not keep Mrs. Devonshire waiting for lunch. This, after some protest, they consented to do; and in a few moments Gertrude Lorimer was standing alone in the familiar garden, from which she was soon to be shut out for ever.

Pacing slowly up and down the oft-trodden path, she strove to collect her thoughts; to review, at leisure, the events of the last few days. Her avowed contempt of the popular idol Common Sense notwithstanding, her mind teemed with practical details, with importunate questionings as to ways and means.

These matters seemed more perplexing without the calm and soothing influence of Lucy's presence; for Lucy had been borne off by the benevolent and eccentric Mr. Russel for a three-months' apprenticeship in his own flourishing establishment.

"I will see that your sister learns something of the management of a business, besides improving herself in those technical points which we have already discussed," had been his parting assurance. "While, as for you, Miss Lorimer, I depend on you to look round, and be on a fair way to settling down by the time the three months are up. Perhaps, one of these days, we shall prevail on you to pay us a visit yourself."

It had been decided that for the immediate present Gertrude and Phyllis should avail themselves of the Devonshires' invitation; while Fan, borne down by the force of a superior will, had been prevailed upon to seek a temporary refuge at the house of Mrs. Septimus Pratt.

Poor Aunt Caroline had been really shocked and pained by the firm, though polite, refusal of her nieces to accept her hospitality. Their differences of opinion notwithstanding, she could see no adequate cause for it. If her skin was thick, her heart was not of stone; and it chagrined her to think that her dead sister's children should, at such a time, prefer the house of strangers to her own.

But the young people were obdurate; and she had had at last to content herself with Fan, who was a poor creature, and only a spurious sort of relation after all.

Reviewing one by one all those facts which bore upon her present case; setting in order her thoughts; and gathering up her energies for the fight to come; Gertrude felt her pulses throb, and her bosom glow with resolve.

Of the darker possibilities of human nature and of life, this girl—who believed herself old, and experienced—had no knowledge, save such as had come to her in brief flashes of insight, in passing glimpses scarcely realised or remembered. Even had circumstances given her leisure, she was not a woman to have brooded over the one personal injury which had been dealt her; her pride was too deep and too delicate for this; rather she recoiled from the thought of it, as from an unclean contact.

If the arching forehead and mobile face bespoke imagination and keen sensibilities, the square jaw and resolute mouth gave token, no less, of strength and self-control.

said Gertrude to herself, half-unconsciously. Then something within her laughed in scornful protest. Sorrow? on this spring day, with the young life coursing in her veins, with all the world before her, an undiscovered country of purple mists and boundless possibilities.

There were hints of a vague delight in the sweet, keen air; whisperings, promises, that had nothing to do with pyrogallic acid and acetate of soda; with the processes of developing, fixing, or intensifying.

A great laburnum tree stood at one end of the lawn, half-flowered and faintly golden; a blossoming almond neighboured it, and beyond, rose a gnarled old apple tree, pink with buds. Birds were piping and calling to one another from all the branches; the leaves of the trees, the lawn, the shrubs, and bushes, wore the vivid and delicate verdure of early spring; life throbbed, and pulsed, and thrust itself forth in every available spot.

Gertrude, as we know, was by way of being a poet. She had a rebellious heart that cried out, sometimes very inopportunely, for happiness.

And now, as she drank in the wonders of that April morning, she found herself suddenly assailed and overwhelmed by a nameless rapture, an extreme longing, half-hopeful, half-despairing.

Sorrow, labour; what had she to do with these?

cried the voices within her, with one accord.

"Please, Miss," said Kettle, suddenly appearing, and scattering the thronging visions rather rudely; "the people have come from the Pantechnicon about those cameras, and the other things you said was to go."

"Yes, yes," answered Gertrude, rubbing her eyes and wrinkling her brows—curious, characteristic brows they were; straight and thick, and converging slightly upwards—"everything that is to go is ready packed in the studio."

They had decided on retaining a little furniture, besides the photographic apparatus and studio fittings, for the establishment of the new home, wherever and whatever it should be.

"Very well, Miss Gertrude. And shall I bring you up a little luncheon?"

"No, thank you, Kettle. And I must say good-bye, and thank you for all your kindness to us."

"God bless you, Miss Gertrude, every one of you! I have made so bold as to give my address-card to Miss Phyllis; and if there's anything in which I can ever be of service, don't you think twice about it, but write off at once to Jonah Kettle."

Overcome by his own eloquence, and without waiting for a reply, the old man shuffled off down the path, leaving Gertrude strangely touched by this unexpected demonstration.

"We resolved not to be cynical," she thought. "Cynical! What is the meaning of the current commonplaces as to loss of friends with loss of fortune? How did they arise? What perverseness of vision could have led to the creation of such a person as Timon of Athens, for instance? If misery parts the flux of company, surely it is the miserable people's own fault."

Balancing the mass of friends in need against one who was only a fair-weather friend, Gertrude refused to allow her faith in humanity to be shaken.

Ah, Gertrude, but it is early days!