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The sun shone upon her as she lay beneath the white counterpane. She felt its warmth through the bandages which covered the upper half of her face and upon her hands where they lay upon her breast. She lay very still and quiet.

She was looking at the familiar objects in her room with the eyes of memory; the bookshelves near the fireplace; the Brangwyn etching and the study of a tree-fern by Trevor Lloyd which hung upon the south wall; the dressing table with its three mirrors; the crystal bowl which stood upon the window-ledge—the bow!l which Jimmy detested and had threatened to smash; the set of furniture which Jimmy had made for Joan’s doll’s-house, and of which he had been so vain that he had decided to use it to ornament the mantel-piece; the sea-grass chair with the pink panel; the rugs; the photographs of Jimmy and Joan, and of all the family; everything—just as she had left it. She could have placed her hand upon any desired object were she allowed to rise.

Her suffering was not so vivid now as she lay in the darkness surrounded by familiar things. It had been horrible in Palmerston, where the slapping of the canvas screens on the verandah, the rumble of wheeled beds, the cries of the patients, the commands of the nurses, the faint street noises, the terrible clanking of a church bell, and the changing of the dressings had been one long nightmare—a black hell in which she had prayed in vain for light and a surcease from racking pain.

The pain had almost gone now; and here, at home, the days seemed much lighter. Here were friendliness and warmth. Her surroundings knew her and spoke to her. She knew every little sound; the click of the gate, the noise of the shaking of Mrs. Langham’s mats, the soft clatter of the starlings in the pipe near the hot-water cistern, the creaking of the bathroom door, the intermittent rattling of the breeze-blown hydrangeas against the corner of the house, the slapping of drying linen on the line; the countless