The Will and The Way

t starving while the tea was growing cold, and her employer satisfying her own languid needs on scraps of cake and biscuit.

Presently Miss Ruby, lolling back on cushions, with her knees crossed, and her hands knitted behind her head, essayed some lazy reflections.

"The world is a very good place, Catty--don't you think so? I can't imagine how anybody can be uncomfortable or unhappy in it."

"Perhaps not, my dear," answered Miss Pringle, "looking from afar on it, as you do, from the serene altitude of affluence and in the grateful consciousness of a sunny disposition. As my admired Miss Bessa used to remark, 'Optimism and pessimism may be useful terms to psychologists, but to my mind happiness is a question not of externals but of internals.'"

"Yes. I can quite believe that," said Miss Vanborough. "A little pain under one's pinafore, you know--Catty," she continued presently, brightly musing--"did anyone ever want to marry you?"

Miss Pringle started, and blushed a little, wrig