"Lovely!" sighed Audrey. "Oh, Irene, how splendid to have something like that to work for."
"It is. Why don't you do the same? It makes life seem so splendid, so interesting and beautiful. You try it too, Audrey."
"Oh, but I couldn't," said Audrey, wistfully, "there is so much to do here——"
"But at the end of the twelve months, when you go back to your grandmother?"
"Granny would not hear of it. She can't bear the idea of girls—women— working like that, lecturing, I mean. She doesn't mind their being governesses, if they have to, but they must not be anything else." Audrey paused for a moment. "I am not going back to granny, though," she added softly.
"What?" Irene really gasped with astonishment. "I thought—oh, Audrey, won't you be very unhappy? You loved it so. I thought you were counting the days."
"So I was, but I am not now. I am going to stay here. Mother needs me more—and there is so much to do. And I know it will be better for mother not to have hard work to do, even when she is quite well again; and if Faith and I take care of the house and the children, mother will be able to go on with her writing. She loves it, and it is such a help."
Irene stood leaning against the kitchen table, gazing thoughtfully before her. "I think it is fine of you, Audrey," she said earnestly. "You are right; but it is fine of you."
Audrey coloured hotly with pleasure, but: "No it is not," was all she said, "it is only what you would do."
"But I love the work, you don't. I do not want to do any other—you long to, I know."