much-used wicker chair stood in one corner. Rustic garden furniture--much like the old lounge and benches Van had at Edon Heights--wore placed strategically around the plants and greenery. And then Van saw the window-boxes lined along the wall. She bent to examine them more closely. Flowers abounded there--the same variatios that grew on Eden Heights. Violets, pansies, forget-me-nots, marigolds, geraniums, they were all there. She noticed how some of them were planted, tight little clusters in the shape of a "V".

Suddenly, she felt a large drop of rain on her shoulder, then another and another.

Then the clouds burst asunder with warm, spring rain. Vainly, sho looked around for cover. There was none. Regretfully, she surveyed her trim woolen suit, limp now from the deluge. She strode to the door and pounded upon it. "Evadne! Evadne !" To her relief, she heard the latch click from inside.

"What are you doing out here?" Evadne's voice was calm, but her manner was flustered.

"I went through the wrong door. Brrrr! I'm chilled to the bone !"

Evadne looked at Van in dismay. "I'm terribly sorry, I told you the third door to your left, but I gue as you didn't hear me." She motioned Van through the open door, flicked off the patio light-switch and pointed down the hall. "You'd better get out of those wet clothes. I have a blue velvet robe--a last year's Christmas gift from a couple of laddie-friends--that's too large for me. It'll probably fit

you."

A few moments later, Evadne knocked at the bathroom door and handed the robe through to Van. "Hurry. I got tired of waiting for you and put the steaks on. They'll be overdone if I keep them in the broiler much longer."

When Evadne camo in with the sizzling steaks, Van, snugly wrapped in the blue velvet, was standing with her back to the fireplace, hands thrust deep into the pockets of the robe--a characteristic stance Evadne remembered from long ago. She noticed how Van's capable-looking, wide shoulders amply filled out the robe, how the color enhanced Van's blue