“Thank you all the more, then, for not keeping him yourself,” said Fanny, laughing the old blithe laugh again.

“That was only a slight aberration of his; he knew better all the time. It was your white cloak and my idiotic behaviour the night we went to the opera that put the idea into his head,” said Polly, feeling as if the events of that evening had happened some twenty years ago, when she was a giddy young thing, fond of gay bonnets and girlish pranks.

“I’m not going to tell Tom a word about it, but keep it for a surprise till he comes. He will be here next week, and then we’ll have a grand clearing up of mysteries,” said Fan, evidently feeling that the millennium was at hand.

“Perhaps,” said Polly, as her heart fluttered and then sunk, for this was a case where she could do nothing but hope, and keep her hands busy with Will’s new set of shirts.

There is a good deal more of this sort of silent suffering than the world suspects, for the “women who dare” are few, the women who “stand and wait” are many. But if work-baskets were gifted with powers of speech, they could tell stories more true and tender than any we read. For women often sew the tragedy or comedy of life into their work as they sit apparently safe and serene at home, yet are thinking deeply, living whole heart-histories, and praying fervent prayers while they embroider pretty trifles or do the weekly mending.