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Efficient R programming
Colin Gillespie and Robin Lovelace
2016-06-03

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2

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Contents

Welcome to Efficient R Programming 7

Package Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Preface 9

1 Introduction 11
1.1 Who this book is for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2 What is efficiency? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3 Why efficiency? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.4 What is efficient R programming? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.5 Touch typing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.6 Benchmarking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.7 Profiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2 Efficient set-up 17
2.1 Top 5 tips for an efficient R set-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2 Operating system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3 R version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.4 R startup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.5 RStudio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.6 BLAS and alternative R interpreters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

3 Efficient programming 39
3.1 General advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.2 Communicating with the user . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.3 Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.4 S3 objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.5 Caching variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.6 The byte compiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

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4 CONTENTS

4 Efficient workflow 57

4.1 Project planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

4.2 Package selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

4.3 Importing data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

4.4 Tidying data with tidyr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

4.5 Data processing with dplyr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

4.6 Data processing with data.table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

4.7 Publication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

5 Efficient data carpentry 81

6 Efficient visualisation 83

6.1 Rough outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

6.2 Cairo type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

7 Efficient performance 85

7.1 Efficient base R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

7.2 Code profiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

7.3 Parallel computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

7.4 Rcpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

8 Efficient hardware 103

8.1 Top 5 tips for efficient hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

8.2 Background: what is a byte? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

8.3 Random access memory: RAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

8.4 Hard drives: HDD vs SSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

8.5 Operating systems: 32-bit or 64-bit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

8.6 Central processing unit (CPU) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

8.7 Cloud computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

9 Efficient Collaboration 111

9.1 Coding style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

9.2 Version control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

9.3 Refactoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

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CONTENTS 5

10 Efficient Learning 117

10.1 Using R Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
10.2 Reading R source code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
10.3 Learning online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
10.4 Online resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
10.5 Conferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
10.6 Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
10.7 Look at the source code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

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6 CONTENTS

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Welcome to Efficient R Programming

This is the online home of the O’Reilly book: Efficient R programming. Pull requests and general comments
are welcome.
To build the book:

1. Install the latest version of R

• If you are using RStudio, make sure that’s up-to-date as well

2. Install the book dependencies.

devtools::install_github("csgillespie/efficientR")

3. Clone the efficientR repo

4. If you are using RStudio, open index.Rmd and click Knit.

• Alternatively, use the bundled Makefile

Package Dependencies

The book depends on the following packages:

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8 CONTENTS

Name Title
assertive.reflection Assertions for Checking the State of R
benchmarkme Crowd Sourced System Benchmarks
bookdown Authoring Books with R Markdown
cranlogs Download Logs from the ’RStudio’ ’CRAN’ Mirror
data.table Extension of Data.frame
devtools Tools to Make Developing R Packages Easier
DiagrammeR Create Graph Diagrams and Flowcharts Using R
dplyr A Grammar of Data Manipulation
drat Drat R Archive Template
efficient Becoming an Efficient R Programmer
formatR Format R Code Automatically
fortunes R Fortunes
geosphere Spherical Trigonometry
ggplot2 An Implementation of the Grammar of Graphics
ggplot2movies Movies Data
knitr A General-Purpose Package for Dynamic Report Generation in R
lubridate Make Dealing with Dates a Little Easier
microbenchmark Accurate Timing Functions
profvis Interactive Visualizations for Profiling R Code
pryr Tools for Computing on the Language
readr Read Tabular Data
tidyr Easily Tidy Data with ‘spread()‘ and ‘gather()‘ Functions

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Preface

Efficient R Programming is about increasing the amount of work you can do with R in a given amount of
time. It’s about both computational and programmer efficiency. There are many excellent R resources about
topic areas such as visualisation (e.g. Chang 2012), data science (e.g. Grolemund and Wickham 2016) and
package development (e.g. Wickham 2015). There are even more resources on how to use R in particular
domains, including Bayesian Statistics, Machine Learning and Geographic Information Systems. However,
there are very few unified resources on how to simply make R work effectively. Hints, tips and decades of
community knowledge on the subject are scattered across hundreds of internet pages, email threads and
discussion forums, making it challenging for R users to understand how to write efficient code.
In our teaching we have found that this issue applies to beginners and experienced users alike. Whether it’s
a question of understanding how to use R’s vector objects to avoid for loops, knowing how to set-up your
.Rprofile and .Renviron files or the ability to harness R’s excellent C++ interface to do the ‘heavy lifting’,
the concept of efficiency is key. The book aims to distill tips, warnings and ‘tricks of the trade’ down into a
single, cohesive whole that will provide a useful resource to R programmers of all stripes for years to come.
The content of the book reflects the questions that our students, from a range of disciplines, skill levels and
industries, have asked over the years to make their R work faster. How to set-up my system optimally for R
programming work? How can one apply general principles from Computer Science (such as do not repeat
yourself, DRY) to the specifics of an R script? How can R code be incorporated into an efficient workflow,
including project inception, collaboration and write-up? And how can one learn quickly how to use new
packages and functions?
The book answers each of these questions, and more, in 10 self-contained chapters. Each chapter starts simple
and gets progressively more advanced, so there is something for everyone in each. While the more advanced
topics such as parallel programming and C++ may not be immediately relevant to R beginners, the book
helps to navigate R’s famously steep learning curve with a commitment to starting slow and building on
strong foundations. Thus even experienced R users are likely to find previously hidden gems of advice in the
early parts of the chapters. “Why did no one tell me that before?” is a common exclamation we have heard
while teaching this material.
Efficient programming should not be seen as an optional extra and the importance of efficiency grows with
the size of projects and datasets. In fact, this book was devised while we were teaching a course on ‘R for
Big Data’: it quickly became apparent that if you want to work with large datasets, your code must work
efficiently. Even if you work with small datasets, efficient code, that is both fast to write and run is a vital
component of successful R projects. We found that the concept of efficient programming is important to
all branches of the R community. Whether you are a sporadic user of R (e.g. for its unbeatable range of
statistical packages), looking to develop a package, or working on a large collaborative project in which
efficiency is mission-critical, code efficiency will have a major impact on your productivity.
Ultimately efficiency is about getting more output for less work input. To take the analogy of a car, would
you rather drive 1000 km on a single tank (or a single charge of your batteries) or refuel a heavy, clunky and
ugly car every 50 km? In the same way, efficient R code is better than inefficient R code in almost every way:
it is easier to read, write, run, share and maintain. This book cannot provide all the answers about how to
produce such code but it certainly can provide ideas, example code and tips to make a start in the right
direction of travel.

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10 CONTENTS

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Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Who this book is for

This book is for anyone who wants to make their R code faster to type, faster to run and more scalable.
These considerations generally come after learning the very basics of R for data analysis: we assume you are
either accustomed to R or proficient at programming in other languages, although the book could still be of
use for beginners. Thus the book should be of use to three groups, albeit in different ways:

• For programmers with little R knowledge this book will help you navigate the quirks of R to
make it work efficiently: it is easy to write slow R code if you treat as if were another language.
• For R users who have little experience of programming this book will show you many concepts
and ‘tricks of the trade’, some of which are borrowed from Computer Science, that will make your work
more time effective.
• A R beginner, you should probably read this book in parallel with other R resources such as the
numerous, vignettes, tutorials and online articles that the R community has produced. At a bare
minimum you should have R installed on your computer (see section 2.3 for information on how best to
install R on new computers).

1.2 What is efficiency?

In everyday life efficiency roughly means ‘working well’. An efficient vehicle goes far without guzzling gas. An
efficient worker gets the job done fast without stress. And an efficient light shines bright with a minimum of
energy consumption. In this final sense, efficiency (η) has a formal definition as the ratio of work done (W
e.g. light output) over effort (Q energy consumption):

W
η=
Q

In the context of computer programming efficiency can be defined narrowly or broadly. The narrow sense,
algorithmic efficiency refers to the way a particular task is undertaken. This concept dates back to the very
origins of computing, as illustrated by the following quote by Lovelace (1842) in her notes on the work of
Charles Babbage, one of the pioneers of early computing:

In almost every computation a great variety of arrangements for the succession of the processes is
possible, and various considerations must influence the selections amongst them for the purposes

11
12 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

of a calculating engine. One essential object is to choose that arrangement which shall tend to
reduce to a minimum the time necessary for completing the calculation.

The issue of having a ‘great variety’ of ways to solve a problem has not gone away with the invention of
advanced computer languages: R is notorious for allowing users to solve problems in many ways, and this
notoriety has only grown with the proliferation of community contributed package. In this book we want to
focus on the best way of solving problems, from an efficiency perspective.

The second, broader definition of efficient computing is productivity. This is the amount of useful work a
person (not a computer) can do per unit time. It may be possible to rewrite your codebase in C to make it
100 times faster. But if this takes 100 human hours it may not be worth it. Computers can chug away day
and night. People cannot. Human productivity the subject of Chapter 4.

By the end of this book you should know how to write R code that is efficient from both algorithmic and
productivity perspectives. Efficient code is also concise, elegant and easy to maintain, vital when working on
large projects.

1.3 Why efficiency?

Computers are always getting more powerful. Does this not reduce the need for efficient computing? The
answer is simple: in an age of Big Data and stagnating computer clockspeeds (see Chapter 8), computational
bottlenecks are more likely than ever before to hamper your work. An efficient programmer can “solve more
complex tasks, ask more ambitious questions, and include more sophisticated analyses in their research”
(Visser et al. 2015).

A concrete example illustrates the importance of efficiency in mission critical situations. Robin was working
on a tight contract for the UK’s Department for Transport, to build the Propensity to Cycle Tool, an online
application which had to be ready for national deployment in less than 4 months. To help his workflow he
developed a function, line2route() in the stplanr to batch process calls to the (cyclestreets.net) API. But
after a few thousand routes the code slowed to a standstill. Yet hundreds of thousands were needed. This
endangered the contract. After eliminating internet connection issues, it was found that the slowdown was
due to a bug in line2route(): it suffered from the ‘vector growing problem’, discussed in Section 3.1.1.

The solution was simple. A single commit made line2route() more than ten times faster and substantially
shorter. This potentially saved the project from failure. The moral of this story is that efficient programming
is not merely a desirable skill: it can be essential.

1.4 What is efficient R programming?

Efficient R programming is the implementation of efficient programming practices in R. All languages are
different, so efficient R code does not look like efficient code in another language. Many packages have been
optimised for performance so, for some operations, acheiving maximum computational efficiency may simply
be a case of selecting the appropriate package and using it correctly. There are many ways to get the same
result in R, and some are very slow. Therefore not writing slow code should be prioritized over writing fast
code.

Returning to the analogy of the two cars sketched in the preface, efficient R programming for some use cases
can simply mean trading in your heavy and gas guzzling hummer for a normal hatchback. The search for
optimal performance often has diminishing returns so it is important to find bottlenecks in your code to
prioritise work for maximum increases in computational efficency.
1.5. TOUCH TYPING 13

1.5 Touch typing

The other side of the efficiency coin is programmer efficiency. There are many things that will help increase
the productivity of yourself and your collaborators, not least following the advice of Janert (2010) to ‘think
more work less’. The evidence suggests that good diet, physical activity, plenty of sleep and a healthy work-life
balance can all boost your speed and effectiveness at work (Jensen 2011; Pereira et al. 2015; Grant, Wallace,
and Spurgeon 2013).
While we recommend the reader to reflect on this evidence and their own well-being, this is not a self help
book. It is about programming. However, there is one non-programming skill that can have a huge impact
on productivity: touch typing. This skill can be relatively painless to learn, and can have a huge impact on
your ability to write, modify and test R code quickly. Learning to touch type properly will pay off in small
increments throughout the rest of your programming life (of course, the benefits are not constrained to R
programming).
The key difference between a touch typist and someone who constantly looks back at the keyboard, or who
uses only two or three fingers for all letters is hand placement. Touch typing involves positioning your hands
on the keyboard with each finger of both hands touching or hovering over a specific letter (Figure 1.1). This
takes time and some discipline to learn. Fortunately there are many resources that will help you get in the
habit of touch typing early, including open source software projects Klavaro and TypeFaster.

Figure 1.1: The starting position for touch typing, with the fingers over the ‘home keys’. Source: Wikipedia
under the Creative Commons license.

1.6 Benchmarking
Benchmarking is the process of testing the performance of specific operations repeatedly. Modifying things
from one benchmark to the next and recording the results after changing things allows experimentation to
Exploring the Variety of Random
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Lonely
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONELY

STRONGHOLD ***
 THE
LONELY STRONGHOLD

BY
MRS. BAILLIE REYNOLDS

AUTHOR OF "A CASTLE TO LET," ETC.

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1918
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

 BY MRS. BAILLIE REYNOLDS

A CASTLE TO LET
THE DAUGHTER PAYS
THE COST OF A PROMISE
A DOUBTFUL CHARACTER
A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE
OUT OF THE NIGHT
GIRL FROM NOWHERE
THE NOTORIOUS MISS LISLE

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

NEW YORK

CONTENTS
I The Palatine Bank
II Olwen At Home
III "What is a Pele Exactly?"
IV Her First Offer
V Traveller's Joy
VI Commencing Acquaintance
VII The Dark Tower
VIII The First Day
IX Indian Magic
X A Queer Household
XI Miss Lily Martin
XII A Confidence: and Some Spying
XIII Ninian's Defence
XIV A Fresh Start
XV A Cold Walk
XVI A Little Friction
XVII Balmayne's Warning
XVIII Visitors
XIX A Discovery
XX The Philtre
XXI By the Loughside
XXII The Mile-Castle
XXIII What the Dawn Brought
XXIV The Final Warning

THE
LONELY STRONGHOLD

CHAPTER I
THE PALATINE BANK

The sleet drove spitefully against the dirty windows of the stuffy
room behind the Palatine Bank in the High Street of Bramforth.
The air was close, without being warm; a smell of tea and
toasted bread lingered upon it. The clock struck, and the girls who
sat upon their high stools, cramped over columns of figures,
straightened their backs with long sighs of relief.
 "Snakes! What weather!" muttered Miss Hand as she pushed
back her stool until it almost overbalanced in her efforts to gaze at
the December night without.
"With my usual luck, came without a gamp this morning,"
grumbled Miss Turner, collecting loose sheets with a dexterity born
of long practice.
"And you've got a mile to walk when you get off the tram,"
exclaimed Miss Donkin sympathetically.
Mrs. Barnes, who presided, seated not at a desk but at a central
table, wiped her pen, looking across the zoom with knitted brows.
"It has struck, Miss Innes," said she.
The click of the typewriter went on nevertheless, and the
operator replied without desisting from her work. "Let me get to the
foot of this page, please."
There began the rustle and murmur of the girls leaving their
places, in what was described by the bank managers as "The ladies'
room." Mabel Hirst, a pretty girl with dark eyes, ran to the fire and
held her chilblained hands to its warmth. "Oh, my goody," said she,
"when will old Storky start in on that 'chauffage centrale' which he is
always gassing about?"
"At the coming of the coquecigrues, I should think," said the
voice of Miss Innes, who now ceased her clicking, rose from her
chair, and raised her arms above her head, breathing a long "A-ah!"
of relief.
"Not that I think it would be much improvement," she went on.
"It probably wouldn't work. Nothing does work in this old town; and
as long as we have the fire there is at least one place where you can
go and thaw now and then."
 An electric bell rang twice.
"Hallo, Barney, old Storky wants you," said Mabel Hirst. "Beg
him to accept my compliments, and ask if he ever gives
compensation for chilblains."
"Tell him it's my birthday to-morrow!"
"Say you think my work during this past quarter merits a rise!"
"Suggest he gives us a Christmas treat—stalls for the panto!"
The chorus was practically simultaneous, and Mrs. Barnes put
her hands over her ears. "I'm far more likely to ask permission to
increase the fines for talking," was her parting shaft, as she vanished
in obedience to the summons.
"You look a bit fagged, Innes," remarked Mabel Hirst, as the
typist approached the fire, and knelt down so that the flames shone
upon her small, intense face.
"Oh, it's not fag so much as disgust," she replied, in a voice of
individual quality. "I don't think I can stick this any longer. I didn't
take a secretarial training in order to type out rows of figures all day
long. I am bored, dears—bored stiff! All my powers are wasting their
sweetness on the desert air—or rather the town lack of air! The
desert would be all right. I shouldn't a scrap mind blushing unseen if
I had plenty of space to blush in! Ouf! I feel as if I should choke!"
She stared at the fire with firmly folded lips, every line of her
slender person seeming to breathe the resentment she felt.
"It's pretty bad," agreed Miss Turner, who was lacing up her
hoots. "Suppose nobody's got a raincloak they'll be saint enough to
lend?"
"Yes," replied Miss Innes, "you shall have mine. I brought a
gamp, and I haven't far to walk. But look here—mind you bring it
back."
"Course I will. To-morrow without fail, moddum. Oh, this sleet!
It really is something chronic."
The dressing-room opened out of the office, but in the absence
of Barney the connecting door stood wide, against all rules, and the
girls went in and out, warming their boots before putting them on,
commenting on the frozen water-pipes and kindred grievances, after
the manned of their kind all the world over.
In the midst of it, the superintendent returned.
"Hallo! What did the old bird want? Give you the sack, or tell
you to bestow it on any of us?"
"I'm sure it was about a Christmas tree for the young ladies, in
recognition of the fine work they have put in——"
"Nat quite that, but the next best thing," replied Barney, in a
cheerful tone. "In view of the coming heavy work in the New Year,
you and I are to have an extra day for Christmas—the 24th to the
28th! What d'you think of that?"
There was a whoop of joy, and the babel of voices broke out
anew.
"If only he would give us the day before instead of after," sighed
one malcontent "If we had Christmas Eve now——"
"My dear, you know that's impossible at a bank. Take your extra
day and give thanks for it. It's more than the men are getting," was
the rejoinder of Mrs. Barnes.
"Three whole days!" echoed Blanche Turner. "I shall have
forgotten you all by the time we reassemble. Think of that! Shan't
know you by sight!"
 "I can easily believe that! Having spent your holiday entirely at
the 'movies,' your sight will have given out," jeered Miss Donkin.
"Then you'll lose your job, my girl."
"I shall go to Leeds, to my aunt!"
"And I to Driffield."
"And I home."
The chatter waxed louder and louder, as gradually girl after girl
got ready. Then they began to depart, drifting out by twos and
threes through a side door into an alley giving upon the High Street.
Miss Innes was last. She stood alone before the little looking-
glass fitting her hat dexterously upon her gleaming hair, her eyes
mechanically assisting at the process, but really far away with her
busy thoughts. She had not anticipated such a violent downpour as
greeted her when she emerged into the street; and as she crossed,
to await a tram, she half regretted her loan of her cloak to Miss
Turner. She was lucky enough to get a place in the first car that
passed. Ten minutes' journey brought her to the residential suburb
of the ugly town, and as she descended into the road the rain
poured down upon her with such vehemence that she took shelter
under a tree for a minute, in order to get her breath and decide
what to do.
Struck by a happy idea, she turned into a road close by, and
made her way to a detached house, standing inside a wall with two
carriage gates. In the comparative shelter of the porch she halted
and rang the bell.
The middle-aged servant who admitted her said with a smile
that Mrs. Holroyd and Miss Gracie were in the dining-room.
 Miss Innes wiped the rain from her face, placed her dripping
umbrella in the stand, and opened the door of a hot, over-furnished,
but comfortable room, in which a stout, rather shapeless lady and a
good-humoured girl who would be a duplicate of her mother in
twenty years' time, sat at a huge dining-table strewn with paper,
string and parcels.
"Olwen!" cried Gracie, jumping up with a pleased cry of
greeting.
"Why, how do you do? We're downright pleased to see you. I
was saying to Gracie, it was only yesterday, that Ollie never takes
advantage of our invitation to drop in upon us any night on her way
back from the bank. So here we are as usual! Busy with the
Christmas packing! But it's almost done now, and as I say to Gracie,
when it's done, it's done for a year, that's one good thing."
Olwen kissed the jolly lady. "I feel a regular beggar," said she. "I
have come in now for the sordid reason that I want to borrow
something. And you pay the penalty for being the kindest people I
know."
"My dear! Anything we can lend you!—"
Olwen explained that her raincoat had been borrowed, and that
the storm was so severe that she feared to reach the Vicarage wet
through without one. "If Gracie will lend me hers I can leave it as I
go down to-morrow morning," said she.
"Well, of course! But now you're here, won't you stay the
evening? Pa'll be in, and Ben, for supper before so very long, and
we'll clear up this mess in no time. Now do, child! Think how pleased
Ben'll be to find you here!"
 "You are always so kind, but I can't, really. To begin with, I
always feel so soiled in my office frock. Gracie will know what I
mean! And, to go on with, this evening is my only time for any little
Christmas work that I have in hand. To-morrow night we shall
almost certainly be working overtime, as they are giving us girls an
extra day off, and so you see I simply must get back."
"An extra day's holiday! Well, that is a bit of luck, any way. Now
sit down while Gracie gets you a bit of cake and a glass of port, for
you look perished. And tell me how the dear vicar is."
"Thanks. Grandfather is wonderfully well."
"That's right, that's right! I daresay he finds Mr. Witherly a great
help in the parish—so active and energetic! Dear, dear, what a good
thing he bore up so well at the time of your dear grandmother's
death. I said to Gracie, I remember, 'My dear, this will mean the
break-up of our vicar.' But, after all, it was not. He bore it nobly, like
the Christian he is."
"Aunt Maud and Aunt Ada take care he shall feel it as little as
possible," replied Olwen. "You see, grand-mamma had been ailing so
long before her death."
"Yes, that's true enough," sighed Mrs. Holroyd. "It's a trial, Ollie,
as you will find when you get into years, to be taken off your feet,
so that you hinder the ones you have always been used to help. I
must say I am thankful I can still get about."
"Get about indeed! Walk me off my legs!" put in Gracie dryly.
It was good to hear her mother's fat, contented laugh.
"Oh, well, it's your merry heart goes all the day," said she, "and
look what a happy woman I've always been, with your father ready
to cut off his head and serve it up in a dish if he'd 'a' thought I
wanted it; and such good children as I've had; my girls so well
married, my boys so well started, and now me left with Ben, my
eldest, and Gracie, my youngest, and the grandchildren now and
then! Now, it was different with your poor grandma! One trouble
after another! Your poor dear mother's unlucky marriage and sad
death! Your Uncle Charles's misfortune, your Uncle Horace's sad
end! Oh, she had her troubles, poor, dear lady, and no doubt she
was glad to be at rest at last!"
Olwen listened with an indulgent smile on her expressive face.
Once long ago she had determined to count the "poors," the "dears"
and "I-said-to-Gracies" in Mrs. Holroyd's talk; but had soon
abandoned the enterprise as hopeless. "Did you know that Aunt
Ethel and her whole family are coming for Christmas?" she asked.
"No, my dear, is that so? ... Well, of course, not but what there
is plenty of room in that great Vicarage for all ... but let me see, how
many children are there? Five, it must be!"
"Five and a nurse," said Olwen, smiling.
"Well, but dearie, that is a great expense for the vicar."
"It is Uncle George who bears it, not grandfather. They bring
two of their own maids to help ours, and I think everybody enjoys it.
Frank and Marjorie are getting quite grown up now."
"Well, I call that a very nice arrangement, a good old-fashioned
way to keep Christmas. Most sensible! I daresay your Aunt Ethel
knew the vicar would be feeling his loneliness this year, didn't she
now?" Mrs. Holroyd expatiated for long on the subject. She was still
talking when the front door was heard, and Gracie, with a sly glance
at Olwen, said:
"There's Ben, I do believe."
 Olwen had been so comfortable in the easy chair drawn up to
the great fire that she had stayed longer than she intended. Ben
Holroyd was the reason why she did not oftener avail herself of his
mother's unaffected kindness. The Holroyds were not aristocratic. In
fact, when Mrs. Holroyd said "packing up," her accent came
perilously near to the "paacking oop" of the lower orders in
Bramforth. They were genuine and hospitable, and the girl's life was
starved; not so starved, however, that she was as yet ready to take
Ben as a way out.
He now entered the room, a short, stocky man of five-and-
thirty, even now redder in the face than was strictly becoming, and
probably to grow more so as years went on. He had a ragged dark
moustache and uneasy eyes, which seemed always apologising. The
good-humoured simplicity which made one pardon his mother's lack
of breeding was wholly absent in him. He had fixed his heart upon
Olwen Innes, who was a very poor match from a pecuniary point of
view, but whom he knew to be above him socially.
Gracie and Olwen had together received their education at the
Bramforth High School for Girls, wherein Olwen had always been the
show pupil and Gracie at the bottom of her class. Day by day the
two had gone and returned together, with their satchels and lunch
packets, and there subsisted between them a real friendship. Had it
not been for poor Ben, the friendship would have been closer, as
Gracie more than suspected.
His face, as he came in, showed his delight. He sat down by
Olwen, and at his mother's instigation earnestly sought to make her
reconsider her decision and stay the evening. She was resolute in
her refusal, and Mrs. Holroyd, her heart sore for her boy's
disappointment, bethought her of the bit of information incautiously
let drop before he came in.
"Never mind, Bennie, we'll do better," said she cheerfully. "Ollie
says the bank is giving her an extra day's holiday. Now, why can't
you and she and Gracie find somebody to make a fourth, and take
the train to Leeds day after Boxing Day? Lunch there, and go to a
mattinnay, mother standing treat. Eh? How's that?"
Ben and Gracie thought this a brilliant suggestion. Olwen did
not see how to decline it. A matinée at Leeds, where an excellent
company was then performing, was a treat she seldom obtained.
Mrs. Holroyd, proud of her success, ordered Ben to the telephone
forthwith to engage seats. After a little more talk, Olwen took her
departure, but, as she had foreboded, Ben thought it necessary to
escort her home. She resisted as firmly as was possible without
rudeness, but was obliged at last to give in.
Warmly wrapped in Gracie's raincoat, she found herself out in
the storm, her hand linked to Ben's sturdy arm, while he held one
umbrella over the two of them.
"Mind the mud, Miss Olwen. The Council ought to have mended
this road last summer, as I told my father."
"Yes, indeed, what is the use of a father in such an exalted
position if he can't get the road mended outside is own house?"
laughed Olwen, hoping to keep this prosaic subject. Inwardly her
thoughts ran somewhat thus:
... Would it be possible? Would even this be better than her
present life? ... Always had she been surrounded by the hosts of the
Philistines, she who was born, she was very certain, upon the sea-
coast of Bohemia! ... It was merely existence, not life, in the shabby
Vicarage, with the two parochial aunts, the weary old grandfather
and the periodical inrushes of the Whitefield clan! Her Aunt Ethel
had married George Whitefield, a man of no more exalted origin
than Ben Holroyd. A mill-owner, but a very wealthy one. The
Holroyds were only comfortable——
Could it be that she was so utterly contemptible that she was
loath to swallow poor Ben merely because the pill was insufficiently
gilded? ... Well, it did make a difference. Aunt Ethel lived in a palace.
She had hot-houses and motorcars, her boy had been to the
University. Marriage with Ben would mean a semi-detached villa in a
suburb of Bramforth. Dear Mrs. Holroyd would present, and
consequently would expect to choose, the Brussels carpet and rep
curtains, and to lay the best quality cork lino plentifully over halls
and passage ways....
"You can't think how pleased I am that the bank has given you
an extra day," Ben was saying when she began to listen. "It doesn't
seem right to me for the likes of you to be working there. Why, Flora
Donkin, the butcher's daughter, is in your room, isn't she?"
"Certainly she is, and a very good sort. So neat, I love copying
out her figures."
"But it's not the place for you," repeated Ben more fervently.
"You ought to have a home of your own, and someone to take care
of you all the time."
The moment for the inevitable cold water had arrived, and she
was forced to throw it. A declaration at this moment would be more
than she could bear. "Dear me, how Early Victorian you are!" she
laughed. "We girls of the twentieth century don't want people to
look after us. We want to live our own lives, don't you know?"
 He was silent, swallowing down mortification. He had got quite
near that time! Then: "Gracie doesn't want to do that kind of thing,"
he muttered sulkily.
"Gracie's vocation is very plain. She has a mother who can't do
without her. I have no home ties. I can go where I like and do what
I like."
"And what you like is the baank?"
She laughed "Oh, the bank's all right!" she told him lightly. Not
for worlds would she have divulged to him her deep dissatisfaction
with things as they were. She could not tell him that she had
secretly sent an advertisement to the papers only a day or two
previously—an advertisement to which she was at the moment
feverishly awaiting replies. Aloud, she went on: "Gracie and I are
great friends, but we are not a bit alike, you know. She is the fine
domestic type of woman, but that is just what I'm not. My father, as
you know, was the reverse of domestic. I take after him."
Ben felt very uncomfortable. Madoc Innes, Olwen's father, was
what Ben would have described as a "bad hat." He felt any allusion
to this discreditable parent to be in the nature of an indelicacy. He
knew that Olwen was capricious and perverse, but he held the
steadfast belief of many a good man, that she would after marriage
turn automatically into just the woman he would have her be.
Something in her made special appeal to him, and had always
done so, even in the days when she wore short skirts and long black
stockings, and her remarkable hair had streamed in the wind, all
shaded from dun colour to old gold. The thought of her scapegrace
father was the one point upon which he was uncertain. Olwen had
accomplished her intention. They reached the Vicarage with no
further attempt at love-making on his part.

CHAPTER II
OLWEN AT HOME

The large family of the Reverend James Wilson had been brought up
on the fringes of Dartmoor. His income there was, however, of so
inadequate a nature, in view of his domestic requirements, that
when the question of education demanded heroic measures, he
accepted the living of Gratfield, a very large town in the industrial
Midlands—a post for which both his temperament and his habit of
life hitherto made him singularly ill-fitted.
Of his seven children, four were girls. They were fine creatures,
with white limbs, blonde hair, complexion of cream and roses. Their
natures were placidly bovine, except during that brief period in
which a girl's own sense of her own beauty and the power it
bestows kindles in her a fictitious vivacity, and nature, for her own
purposes, lends a charm which is incredibly fugitive.
The young ladies made quite a sensation upon their arrival in
Gratfield. Not long before, Madoc Innes, a clever young Welsh
journalist, had bought the Gratfield Courier and settled in the place.
He was handsome on a small scale, and passed for rich—drove good
horses, smoked expensive cigars, and was much in demand in a
society where such young men are rare.
 The sight of Clara Wilson at a ball set his Celtic blood on fire.
Her Juno-like loveliness made so powerful an appeal to his senses
that the limits of her mind or the faults of her disposition did not
enter the question. She was stupid, and she was essentially
Philistine, but he shut his eyes to it until too late. They were
married, and he committed his first enormity by the purchase of a
little old Elizabethan farm up on the moor outside Gratfield, planning
to drive to his work each day.
Clara detested the place. She had had as much of moors and
heather in her childhood as would last her all her life. What she
desired was shops and fine clothes, plenty of company, the chance
to show off and be admired. For these things she had married, and
not for love of Madoc, with whose tastes she had no sympathy, and
whose disposition she would have disliked had she ever given a
thought to the subject.
After the blind fashion of a man in love, the young husband felt
that he had not won his wife's devotion long before he consciously
admitted anything of the kind. He began by spoiling her
outrageously, giving her all she craved, in the vain hope that gifts
might propitiate her and incline her to a more favourable—one might
say a more interested—attitude towards himself.
Unhappily, a year or two after the marriage his rising fortunes
underwent a sharp change.
Being a Welshman, he was a violent partisan, and his
knowledge of the temper and prejudices of the North was very
imperfect. He attacked a certain public character, and found himself
up against a stone wall of implacable hostility. A costly libel action
left him a ruined man. He being thus deprived of what had been his
sole asset in his wife's eyes, their lack of unity became at once
nakedly apparent.
He had plenty of courage and belief in himself. He took his wife
and baby girl to London, where he got work on a big "daily," and
hoped for better things.
Clara, however, had no forgiveness for him. She had married
with one object, that of being well off; and her failure was more
sharply accentuated in her eyes by the fact that Ethel, her next
sister, had made a conquest of George Whitefield, only son and heir
of the richest mill-owner in Gratfield.
Hopelessly out of sympathy, the Innes pair drifted wider and
wider apart. The discovery of his wife's indifference warped Madoc's
unstable temperament. Miserable at home, he consoled himself
elsewhere. They ran continually into debt, there was even an
execution in the house. Scenes grew frequent and even violent, At
last, when Olwen was about seven years old, her father disappeared
completely, leaving behind an envelope, addressed to his wife,
containing a hundred pounds in bank-notes.
Clara, her beauty gone, broken in health, soured in temper,
returned, with her little daughter, to her father's rectory.
She came at an unlucky turn in the family fortunes.
It had long been apparent that twenty years of sloth in a tiny
parish, in a mild and balmy climate, had permanently unfitted the
Rev. James Wilson for strenuous work and the rushing life of a big
town. After a struggle, hopeless from the first, against his
constitutional inertia, and the growing dissatisfaction of his
parishioners, he was stricken down by severe illness. His return to
health was seriously retarded by the sad climax of Clara's marriage,
and the failure of his sons to do anything to lighten his burden of
undone work and unpaid bills.
At this point his old college offered him the living of St Agnes,
Bramforth, about fifty miles further north. It was a depressing
district, semi-suburban, semi-industrial, with an 1850 church, pew-
rented, and a fluctuating congregation. The income was, however,
as good as that of his present cure, and the work less than half.
About twelve months after the flight of Madoc Innes, and fifteen
years before that Christmas when Olwen decided that the bank was
intolerable, the family migrated to Bramforth, and Mr. Wilson, with
the assistance of a curate, thankfully lapsed into the stagnation
which suited him.
Olwen's mother was at this time an invalid. Three years later a
prominent surgeon diagnosed serious internal trouble. She
underwent an operation, failed to rally from the shock, and died a
few days later.
The two younger Miss Wilsons, Maud and Ada, did not marry.
Perhaps they looked too high, for while in Gratfield they had not
been without admirers. They were, however, still single, and had
borne with fine unselfishness their share in the strain on the meagre
family resources involved by the necessity of supporting Clara and
Clara's child.
Olwen's memory of her father was vivid. In fact, she often
thought that the first seven years of her life had left a mark far
deeper than those that followed. She was always striving, in an
unformed, eager way, to arrive at the truth concerning the breach
between her parents. Her mother remained in her memory as mostly
fretful and complaining, uncertain in temper, dissatisfied and
uncontrolled. She knew now that Mrs. Innes was a deeply wronged
woman; yet she could not escape the bias of mind produced by the
fact that she herself owed every hour of happiness as a child to her
father. She remembered him as invariably sweet-tempered and gay—
as a constant companion, more like a contemporary—liable as
herself to incur the sudden and capricious wrath of the mistress of
the house.
His upbringing had been cosmopolitan, his parents having lived
much abroad. To adapt himself to the Wilson standpoint had been
from the first impossible. The laborious etiquette of the provinces
was a matter of which he could never grasp the importance. That his
wife's happiness should depend upon such things as card-cases, "At
Home" days, late dinner, or a "drawing-room suite" was to him
unthinkable.
Olwen remembered best of all their habit of escaping together.
They went to remote corners of Hampstead Heath or Battersea Park,
or, if he were in funds, to the Thames, where they took a boat. They
spent long days in make-believe, with a packet of picnic lunch, and a
few pence for their omnibus ride home through the magic dusk of
London. His faculty for story-telling was endless, and one romance,
especially dear, went on in sections from week to week, and was
entitled: "Story of the Dandy Lion and his four friends, the Pale
Policeman, the Cheery Churchwarden, the Sad Sweep, and the
Tremendous Tramp." An illustration of this group of friends was one
of her few mementoes of her vanished boon companion.
From him, too, she heard the tales of the Mabinogion, the
"Romance of Kiluch and Olwen"—whence came her own name, so
severely condemned by the Wilson family—the "Romance of Enid
and Geraint," and so on.
This all made it hard for her to apportion the blame between
the sundered pair. At the Vicarage, of course, all the guilt was
heaped on Madoc Innes. She supposed this to be in fact just. His
temperament may have been charming but his principles were
apparently all wrong. She saw only part. Yet as she grew older she
found herself concentrating more and more upon her mother's share
in the debacle.
That Clara Innes was unable either to sympathise with or to
understand her husband was the result presumably of her
limitations, and these, one would suppose, she could not help. Not
until Olwen read her "Pilgrim's Progress" and learned, with a sudden
shock, that Ignorance was thrust down into hell, did it occur to her
that Ignorance is a crime, since it is a thing one may remedy if one
chooses.
Grumbling, one grants, is not a sin. To fail in sympathy to your
husband is hardly a sin. To make his home uncomfortable is not a
sin, that is, not of the sort called deadly. But to be unfaithful to your
wife is a direct breach of a commandment. Therefore, in the Wilson
code, Clara was innocent and her husband criminal. To his other
crimes he added wife desertion, which is a matter for the police
courts. Clara had never done anything in her life which could
conceivably have landed her in the police court. It was all very
puzzling. When Olwen had spent time, as she often did, in
considering the subject, she usually found that she ended by wishing
that her father had taken her with him when he fled. She felt sure
they could have been happy together.
 In her heart she knew herself for her father's daughter, and
from the Wilson point of view wholly alien. It was typical of them
that they should so dislike her name, for no reason but because they
had never heard it before. The name of Owendolen, just as Welsh,
and more high-falutin in sound, was quite popular in Bramforth,
because Owendolen was in fairly common use. Olwen was different,
and she was usually called "Ollie" in hopes that the casual
acquaintance might suppose her baptismal name to be Olive, a
name which, mysteriously enough, was under no ban.
Her defaulting father had made no sign, and sent no message
upon the occasion of his wife's death. It was tacitly assumed that he
was either dead or had gone to some remote quarter of the globe,
where he was living most probably under an alias.
For nearly three years now Olwen had been self-supporting. At
first her post at the bank had possessed that elfin charm with which
most novelties are gilded when one is in one's teens. Life itself is
then a romance, the mere act of coming out into the streets on a
fine morning may be the beginning of endless adventure.
Now the monotony had killed the novelty. Her father's restless
blood stirred and demanded relief. She felt almost desperate as she
let herself into the Vicarage and pushed her streaming umbrella into
the untidy receptacle.
A lowered jet of gas burned dimly in the hall. Yet by its light she
could descry a letter upon the hall table, addressed "Miss O. Innes,
St. Agnes Vicarage, Bramforth."
An answer to her advertisement at last! A way of escape from
the bank or its alternative, Ben and the linoleumed villa!
 Snatching it up, she hurried away to her own room, to enjoy the
excitement of reading it.
On the threshold of that sanctuary she paused. It was in a state
of upheaval. There was no bedding on the bedstead, no carpet on
the floor. Instantly she remembered that her room was being
cleaned for the reception of Marjorie Whitefield, and that she herself
was to "double up" with Aunt Maud during the period of invasion.
Ashamed of her own feeling of acute distaste, she turned and
went slowly along the passage.
Aunt Maud was washing her hands for supper, and the subdued
kindness with which she welcomed her niece and showed her how
she had taken things out of drawers and bestowed them as well as
she could during the girl's absence, made Olwen vexed at her own
irritation.
Aunt Maud was very fond of "Ollie." She turned wistfully to the
only young creature left remaining in the shabby old Vicarage. She
lingered now, to explain in detail every point in her successful
"packing of them all in." It was her part to superintend the
housework while her elder sister did the catering, an arrangement
which, on the whole, worked well.
Olwen strove with courage and some success to make her
interest seem real. The way in which a certain hole in the dining-
room carpet had been triumphed over, and the report that the re-
enamelling of the bath was a complete success, were things of deep
importance to Aunt Maud, and it would have been brutal to snub
her.
When at last she went downstairs, there were but five minutes
before the supper bell, but curiosity would no longer be denied.
Olwen sat down on the bed with the letter in her hand, enjoying the
delights of speculation before opening it. It was addressed in a very
pretty hand, and bore the postmark of a part of England noted for
fine scenery.
"Suppose," thought Olwen, whose suppositions leaned always to
the romantic, "that I hold my destiny in my hand at this moment?"
Excuse enough, in all conscience, for some dallying with the
anticipation!
However, at last the envelope was broken and the letter lay
under her eyes:

"Dulley Vicarage.

"Mrs. Jones, having seen Miss O. Innes's advt, thinks the post she
can offer might be suitable. She is in want of a lady to live in the
house and help in the training of her children, five in number.
"A servant is kept, but Miss I. would be asked to make herself
generally useful. Her secretarial training would be very useful to Mr.
Jones in copying out his sermons and conducting his
correspondence. If Miss I. has a typewriter of her own, Mrs. Jones
would have no objection to her bringing it with her. She would be
treated in all respects as one of the family, and Mrs. Jones would
give a pound a month pocket money, as to her own daughter."

For a moment Olwen gripped the letter in her young fist as if she
wished its writer were there instead. Then her sense of humour
triumphed. Bursting into hearty laughter, she crushed the
impertinence into a ball and tossed it into the fender.
 "Well," she mused, "I think that is the limit! And there is my sole
reply to an advertisement which cost me five shillings!"
Fiercely she brushed the thick mane of dun-coloured hair that
shaded to gold. "And I thought my destiny lay in that envelope!" she
whispered quite fiercely. Her eyes seemed to blaze. They were pale
grey eyes, made beautiful by noticeably fine lashes, which, with her
eyebrows, were too dark for such fair hair. She was not going to be
discouraged. She would write to London, to a first-class agency, and
pay whatever fee they demanded. To go to London would be to
escape from Ben.
She laughed and sighed both at once. Aunt Maud would have
liked her to marry Ben—poor Aunt Maud, who knew nothing of the
discontent which had grown up within the daughter of Madoc Innes.
She had feared it in Ollie's early girlhood—had watched for signs of
it. But by degrees she had reached the comforting conviction that
Olwen inherited from her Wilson relatives too good a strain of steady
devotion to duty to be troubled by her father's vagabond instincts.
She loved Olwen, and confided in her. Olwen loved her, but
never reciprocated the confidences. Aunt Maud might have inferred
much from the circumstance, but she belonged to a type which does
not draw inferences.

CHAPTER III
"WHAT IS A PELE EXACTLY?"
"Ollie has changed a good deal during these last three years,"
remarked Mrs. Whitefield, as she reclined in the least uncomfortable
of the Vicarage drawing-room chairs, beside a huge and glowing fire
such as seldom burned in the little-used grate.
Aunt Ada, opposite, was knitting, with fingers knobby with
rheumatism. "We think we see a great likeness to poor Mamma in
her at times," she remarked, with that softening of the voice in
which she always spoke of her niece, and which vaguely stirred
Ethel's resentment.
"Likeness to Mamma?" she repeated scornfully, "why, she is as
like Madoc Innes as two peas in a pod! See the way her eyes wrinkle
when she laughs—and that mouthful of little short teeth—and the
small-boned type, so Welsh, you know. When we took Lord
Fishguard's place in Glamorgan last summer we were always
meeting people who reminded me of Madoc! And she is just the
same. Yet she seems fairly steady, you say?"
"She is the best girl in the world," put in Aunt Maud fervently.
"Week after week she hands over nearly half her earnings to Ada
and me; and she gives every satisfaction at the bank. You know Mrs.
Barnes only took her post there because she was left a widow on
very small means. She is a friend of the Otleys, and she told them
that Ollie is highly thought of at the Palatine."
"Well, it is to her credit that she should earn her living, but in
my opinion a private post would be more suitable," said the rich
man's wife reflectively. "It's not a nice thing for the family, you know,
having her in business in the very town where you reside—trudging
out to work in all weathers. I wonder if George could get her a
better berth. A good many of our friends keep a private secretary,
and it is quite what George calls a soft job."
Though older than either of her maiden sisters, Mrs. Whitefield
looked years younger. Her golden hair was not tinged with grey, and
her faint suggestion of three chins suited her Juno type. Aunt Ada,
with sparse, fading hair, brushed flat, pale face and spectacles,
might have been her mother.
It was the afternoon of Christmas Day, and the young people
were upstairs, planning a charade to be performed next evening.
The Whitefield children had been born at what their mother
described as easy intervals. Hugh and Marjorie were in their late
teens, Lionel fourteen, and the two youngest still young enough to
be in the nursery.
"She is rather pretty, you know," went on the lady, still
considering her niece. "Though I don't know that I admire any type
so mixed. Her mother's hair and eyes, with her father's dark skin and
eyelashes, make rather a curious effect. Pity she can't marry, poor
girl, but I don't suppose that's likely."
"She might marry to-morrow if she liked, as I happen to know,"
burst out Aunt Maud, who could not bear to hear Ollie patronized.
"Indeed? Anybody worth having?" was the somewhat surprised
rejoinder.
"That depends on what you mean. In my opinion, not nearly
good enough for her, but well enough off to marry and make her
comfortable, and his family would welcome her with open arms."
"Bless me! Then why does she go fagging on at the bank like
this? Doesn't the young man object?"
 "She hasn't given him the right to object," sighed Aunt Maud,
"and I don't think she will; at least, I should have said so a couple of
days ago, but she told me yesterday that she is going out with him—
that is, with his family—the day after to-morrow."
"Oh!" Mrs. Whitefield was half interested, half envious. "George
and I would give her a handsome present," said she, speaking as
though this fact, if known, should weigh heavy in the result. "I
suppose I must be pricking up my ears about Marjorie soon," she
added. "She hasn't inherited the Wilson beauty, but she'll be worth
picking up, as George says."
"So far as I have observed," said Ada suddenly, "a girl needs
only two things in order to get married. I don't mean a girl with
money. Marjorie will get married in any case, she needs no internal
charm. But for a poor girl, there are two essential things——"
"And they are——?"
"A pair of fine eyes and an empty mind. The fine eyes may now
and then be dispensed with; but emptiness of mind is
indispensable."
"Really, Ada, you mustn't talk like that, even to me! It sounds so
embittered. It is sheer nonsense to say men like stupidity."
"Not stupidity—emptiness. A man wants a woman into whose
vacant mind he can pour the image of himself. Jane Austen
describes the pose as intelligent ignorance; but I don't think the
intelligence matters much so long as the ignorance is there."
"You are suggesting," said Ethel superciliously, "that Clara and I
had vacant minds, and that you and Maud are single because you
were more intelligent."
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