acquaintances and these surrounding nebula condensed, here and there, into
the fixed stars of friendship. Not that such condensations were swift or
frequent. Mrs. Upton was not easily intimate. Her very graces, her very
kindnesses, her sympathy and sweetness, were, in a manner, outposts about
an inner citadel and one might for years remain, hospitably entertained,
yet kept at a distance. But the stars, when they did form, were very fixed.
Of such were the two friends who now came in eager for tea, after their
nipping drive: Mrs. Pakenham, English, mother of a large family, wife of
a hard-worked M.P. and landowner; energetically interested in hunting,
philanthropy, books and people; slender and vigorous, with a delicate,
emaciated face, weather-beaten to a pale, crisp red, her eyes as blue as
porcelain, her hair still gold, her smile of the kindest, and Mrs. Wake,
American, rosy, rather stout, rather shabby, and extremely placid of
mien. Mrs. Pakenham, after her drive, was beautifully tidy, furred as to
shoulders and netted as to hair; Mrs. Wake was much disarranged and came
in, smiling patiently, while she put back the disheveled locks from her
brow. She was childless, a widow, very poor; eking out her insufficient
income by novel-writing; unpopular novels that dealt, usually, with gloomy
themes of monotonous and disappointed lives. She was, herself, anything but
gloomy.

She gave her friend, now, swift, short glances, while, standing before
her, her back to the fire, she put her hair behind her ears. She had
known Valerie Upton from childhood, when they had both been the indulged
daughters of wealthy homes, and through all the catastrophes and
achievements of their lives they had kept in close touch with each other.
Mrs. Wake's glances, now, were fond, but slightly quizzical, perhaps
slightly critical. They took in her friend, her attitude, her beautifully
"done" hair, her fresh, sweet face, so little faded, even her polished
finger-nails, and they took in, very unobtrusively, the American letter on