"I suppose one gets used in time to anything, even to—But I wish the days wouldn't drag and seem so awfully long. And I wish Margot's eyes wouldn't look at me as they do. And I wish I didn't always feel tired. And I wish I could stop thinking, and go to sleep for a whole year. How silly it is to have such a lot of impossible wishes!"
"Edred has not been to Craye once since October; and they say he can't get away till after Christmas. If he could, what difference would it make to me? He has that other girl in London—Dorothea Tracy. Mervyn seems to think her nice,—not very pretty, but rather uncommon. And I'm such a commonplace little thing—not clever at all. So, no wonder Edred likes her best. But—"
"I wonder if it is really the same Dorothea who was Christened with me. The same time, the same font, the same name, the same age!—and our two fathers such friends,—and the two mothers wanting their two babies to grow up friends! So Margot says. She only told me the story lately. I did not know it before,—all about the friendship, and the quarrel, and the Christmas card going to and fro."
"But, instead of being friends, Dorothea Tracy and I are strangers. Perhaps something else, too. Perhaps—rivals!"
"She does not know that; and it is not her fault. I must not let myself feel wrongly. Dorothea Tracy is not to blame. I have to tell myself that very often, to keep down something almost like anger. It is no fault of hers, if she is nicer than me,—if Edred cares for her most."
"To-morrow is Christmas Day; so the card will come back from her father—if her father really is my father's old friend. There doesn't seem to be much doubt about that. Margot says he always sends it punctually, so that it arrives on Christmas morning; but I have always been a child till lately, so I was not told about it."
"What an odd man the Colonel must be! Why doesn't he write? Margot says he ought. She says Colonel Tracy was really the one to blame; and as my father took the first step, Colonel Tracy ought to take the second. If I were Dorothea Tracy, I would try to make him. Perhaps she has tried and has failed. After all, she is only my age, though Mervyn says she looks older."
"Dec. 27th."
"Christmas Day is over, and the card which we all expected has not come from Colonel Tracy. There were heaps of cards, of course, for everybody, but that was not among them."
"Father looks quite sad and worried. He must have been very fond of this friend in old days. Margot says she can't think why, because she knows the Colonel was not a favourite with most people. He was counted overbearing and ill-tempered, and fussy. But, somehow, my father and he suited one another. The friendship began when they were boys at school, and it went on when they were subalterns in the same regiment. I think they were both Captains when the quarrel came and divided them, but I am not sure. I know my father was senior."