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The children who peeped through the gate grew to be men and women; their children peeped in like fashion, and still the same order of things endured at the house named the Poplars.

During these years Miss Mason made one friend. It was curious, though perhaps not out of keeping with Miss Mason’s character, which was now almost as original as the garments she wore, that the friend should be a child of ten years old. She had come to live with her parents at the small town in which Miss Stanhope resided. The child’s paternal grandmother had been a friend of Miss Stanhope’s youth. That statement in itself had a flavour of respectability about it. Armed with a letter of introduction from the grandmother—Mrs. Quarly—the parents ventured to call upon Miss Stanhope. She received them graciously enough, and a week later Miss Mason was ordered to return the visit.

It was then that she met little Sybil Quarly, who promptly took an unaccountable, but very strong, liking to her. In a short time Sybil learnt which were the hours spent by Miss Mason in the garden, and from that moment those hours saw a fair-haired child in short petticoats busy in the flower-beds with her. To an onlooker Miss Mason’s manner would have appeared almost surly, but Sybil, with the infallible instinct of childhood, recognized the tenderness beneath the gruff exterior. The two became fast friends.