“Of course we’ll be strangers,” thought Pat miserably. But no…no. Hilary and she could never be strangers. To see him again…to hear his voice…she had not been thrilled like this for years. Did his eyes still laugh when they looked at you? With that hint of wistful appeal back of their laughter? And in the back of her mind, thrust out of sight, was a queer relief that David was away. He and Suzanne had gone for a visit to Nova Scotia. Pat would not acknowledge the relief or look at it.

Judy was almost tremulous over the news. She spent the next day making all the things she knew Hilary had liked in the old days and polished everything in the kitchen till it shone. Even the white kittens and King William and Queen Victoria all had their faces washed. May said you would have thought the Prince of Wales was coming.

“I suppose he’ll be married as soon as he gets back to Vancouver,” she said.

“Oh, oh, that’s as the Good Man Above wills,” said Judy, “and neither you nor I do be having innything to do wid it.”

“Pat always wanted him, didn’t she?” said May. “She never took up with David Kirk until she heard Hilary was engaged.”

“Pat niver ‘wanted’ him,” retorted Judy. “The shoe was on the other foot intirely. But ye cudn’t be understanding.”

She muttered under her breath as she went into the pantry, “‘Spake not in the ears av a fool.’” May overheard it and shrugged. Who cared what Judy said!

There was a whispering of rain in the air and a growl of thunder when Pat went up to dress for Hilary’s coming. She tried on three dresses and tore them off in despair. Finally she slipped on her old marigold chiffon. After all, yellow was her color. She fluffed out her brown hair and looked at herself with a little bit of exultation such as she had not felt for a long while. The mirror was still a friend. She was flushed with excitement…her gold-brown eyes were starry…surely Hilary would not think her so very much changed.

She moved restlessly about the room, changing things aimlessly, then changing them back again. What was it David had read to her from a poem the night before he went away?

“Nothing in earth or heaven

Comes as it came before!”

It couldn’t be the old Hilary who was coming.

“And I can’t bear it if he is a stranger…I can’t,” she thought passionately. “It would be better if he never came back if he comes as a stranger.”