eagerly offered himself. Out of the ten months of their marriage, they
had spent four together. Elizabeth was now twenty-seven, and her
married life had become to her an insubstantial memory. She had been
happy, but in the depths of the mind she knew that she might not have
been happy very long. Her husband's piteous death had stamped upon her,
indeed, a few sharp memories; she saw him always,--as the report of a
brother officer, present at his funeral, had described him--wrapped in
the Flag, and so lowered to his grave, in a desert land. This image
effaced everything else; the weaknesses she knew, and those she had
begun to guess at. But at the same time she had not been crushed by the
tragedy; she had often scourged herself in secret for the rapidity with
which, after it, life had once more become agreeable to her. She knew
that many people thought her incapable of deep feeling. She supposed it
must be true. And yet there were moments when a self within herself
surprised and startled her; not so much, as yet, in connection with
persons, as with ideas, causes--oppressions, injustices, helpless
suffering; or, as now, with a new nation, visibly striking its "being
into bounds."

During her widowhood she had lived much with her mother, and had devoted
herself particularly to this only brother, a delicate lad--lovable,
self-indulgent and provoking--for whom the unquestioning devotion of
two women had not been the best of schools. An attack of rheumatic fever
which had seized him on leaving Christchurch had scared both mother and
sister. He had recovered, but his health was not yet what it had been;
and as at home it was impossible to keep him from playing golf all day,
and bridge all night, the family doctor, in despair, recommended travel,
and Elizabeth had offered to take charge of him. It was not an easy
task, for although Philip was extremely fond of his sister, as the male
head of the family since his father's death he held strong convictions