old Susie, who had been taking her in, " as sound
and strong as I insist on having you."

"Insist, insist the more the better. But the day
I look as sound and strong as that, you know," Milly
went on " on that day I shall be just sound and
strong enough to take leave of you sweetly for ever.
That's where one is," she continued thus agreeably
to embroider, " when even one's most beaux mo
ments aren't such as to qualify, so far as appearance
goes, for anything gayer than a handsome cemetery.
Since I ve lived all these years as if I were dead, I
shall die, no doubt, as if I were alive which will
happen to be as you want me. So, you see," she
wound up, " you ll never really know where I am.
Except indeed when I'm gone; and then you ll only
know where I'm not."

"I'd die for you," said Susan Shepherd after a
moment.

"Thanks awfully! Then stay here for me."

"But we can't be in London for August, nor for
many of all these next weeks."

"Then we ll go back."

Susie blenched. " Back to America?"

"No, abroad to Switzerland, Italy, anywhere.
I mean by your staying?? here for me," Milly pur
sued, " your staying with me wherever I may be,
even though we may neither of us know at the time
where it is. No," she insisted, " I don't know where
I am, and you never will, and it doesn't matter and
I dare say it's quite true," she broke off, " that every-

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v?