s in reckless
cars, they drifted through dark tunnels in gorgeous gondolas. Eve took
her pleasures with a sort of feverish enthusiasm, Marie-Louise with the
air of a skeptic trying out a new thing.

"Mother would faint and fade away if she knew I was here," Marie-Louise
told Richard as she sat next to him in a movie show, "and so would Dad.
He would object to the germs and she would object to the crowd. Mother is
like a flower in a sunlighted garden. She can't imagine that a lily could
grow with its feet in the mud. But they do. And Dad knows it. But he
likes to have mother stay in the sunlighted garden. He would never have
fallen in love with her if her roots had been in the mud."

She was murmuring this into Richard's ear. Eve was on the other side of
him, with Pip beyond.

"I've never had a day like this," Marie-Louise further confided, "and I
am not sure that I like it. It seems so far away from--Pan--and the
trees--and the river."

Her voice dropped into silence, and Richard sat there beside her like a
stone, seeing nothing of the pictures thrown on the screen. He saw a road
which led between spired cedars, he saw an old house with a wide porch.
He saw a golden-lighted table, and his mother's face across the candles.
He saw a girl in a brown coat scattering food for the birds with a kind
little hand--he heard the sound of a bell!

When they reached the yacht, Winifred was dressed for dinner, and Eve and
Marie-Louise scurried below to change. They dined on the upper deck by
moonlight, and sat late enjoying the still warmth of the night. There was
no wind and they seemed to sail through silver waters.

Marie-Louise sang for them. Strange little songs for which she had
composed both words and music. They had haunting cadences, and Pip told
her "For Heaven's sake, kiddie, cheer up. You are making us cry."

She laughed, and gave them a group of old nursery rhymes. Most of them
had to do with things to eat. There was the Dame who baked her pies "on
Christmas day in the morning," and the Queen who made the tarts, and
Jenny Wren and her currant wine.

"They are what I call appetizing," she said quaintly. "When I was a tiny
tot Dad kept me on a diet. I was never allowed to eat pies or tarts or
puddings. So I used to feast vicariously on my nursery rhymes."

They laughed, as she had meant they should, and Pip said, "Give us
another," so she chanted with increasing dramatic effect the story of
King Arthur.

"A