.

THE AWAKENING.
In her heart of hearts Hylda had not greatly welcomed the Duchess of Snowdon to Hamley.

There was no one whose friendship she prized more; but she was passing through a phase of her life when she felt that she was better apart, finding her own path by those intuitions and perceptions which belonged to her own personal experience.

She vaguely felt, what all realise sooner or later, that we must live our dark hours alone.
Yet the frank downright nature of the once beautiful, now faded, Duchess, the humorous glimmer in the pale-blue eyes, the droll irony and dry truth of her speech, appealed to Hylda, made her smile a warm greeting when she would rather have been alone.

For, a few days before, she had begun a quest which had absorbed her, fascinated her.