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 her to sleep the night before with a trace of a smile on her lips. There was the same reaction in the morning. She arose with a pleasant word for her maid, and a special greeting for each of the servants. Such had always been the effect upon Cicely of a sign or signal of any sort from Roger—magic, immediate, warming and softening her through and through, bringing out her loveliest and best.

She wrote to Sheilah when she was still under the spell of Roger's letter. Before ever reading his letter she had made up her mind to help Sheilah. But it was the indefinite sense of sudden joy in her heart, occasioned by the possibility of seeing Roger Dallinger again, that lent wings to her pen, as she wrote Sheilah, offering her gift, not as one bestowing, but as one pleading, as one in sore need of a human being just such as Sheilah—bound to her by tie of blood and family—with whom to share a little of her over-amount of prosperity. Cicely suggested camps for the two older children, a farm near Wallbridge for Phillip, and for her—for Sheilah herself, eight long, quiet, uninterrupted weeks alone in a charming hotel she knew about on the side of a mountain in New Hampshire.

Roger's letter was accountable for bringing to Cicely's mind the particular charming hotel. Cicely and Dr. Sheldon had discussed various retreats for Sheilah, but it wasn't until after Cicely read Roger's