SOPHY OF KRAVONIA
of the stones—or bones, or whatever they may be called—in their appropriate places.
It is the summer of 1865—and Julia is very gorgeous. Three years had passed over her head; her training had been completed a twelve-month before, and she had been on her first tour. She had come home "to rest"—and to look out for a new engagement. She wore a blue hat with a white feather, a blue skirt, and a red "Garibaldi" shirt; her fair hair was dressed in the latest fashion. The sensation she made in Morpingham needs no record. But her head was not turned; nobody was ever less of a snob than Julia Robins, no friendship ever more independent of the ups and downs of life, on one side or the other, than that which united her and Sophy Grouch. She opened communications with the Hall scullery immediately. And—"Sophy was as much of a darling as ever"—is her warm-hearted verdict.
The Hall was not accessible to Julia, nor Woodbine Lodge to Mrs. Brownlow's little cook-girl. But the Squire's coachman had been at the station when Julia's train came in: her arrival would be known in the Hall kitchen, if not up-stairs. On the morrow she went into the avenue of old elms about twelve o'clock, conjecturing that her friend might have a few free moments about that hour—an oasis between the labors of the morning and the claims of luncheon. Standing there under the trees in all her finery—not very expensve finery, no doubt, yet fresh and indisputably gay—she called her old mocking challenge—"Sophy Grouch! Sophy Grouch!"
Sophy was watching. Her head rose from the other side of the ditch. She was down in a moment, up again, and in her friend's arms. "It's like a puff of fresh air," she whispered, as she kissed her, and
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