er stems
threaded, as it were, with jewel-like blossoms; but what was better still,
they had a talk, and Clover felt that she had now a new friend. Geoff told
her of his people at home, and a little about the sister who had lately
died; only a little,--he could not yet trust himself to talk long about
her. Clover listened with frank and gentle interest. She liked to hear
about the old grange at the head of a chine above Clovelley, where Geoff
was born, and which had once been full of boys and girls, now scattered in
the English fashion to all parts of the world. There was Ralph with his
regiment in India,--he was the heir, it seemed,--and Jim and Jack in
Australia, and Oliver with his wife and children in New Zealand, and Allen
at Harrow, and another boy fitting for the civil service. There was a
married sister in Scotland, and another in London; and Isabel, the
youngest of all, still at home,--the light of the house, and the special
pet of the old squire and of Geoff's mother, who, he told Clover, had been
a great beauty in her youth, and though nearly seventy, was in his eyes
beautiful still.

"It's pretty quiet there for Isabel," he said; "but she has my sister
Helen's two children to care for, and that will keep her busy. I used to
think she'd come out to me one of these years for a twelvemonth; but
there's little chance of her being spared now."

Clover's sympathy did not take the form of words. It looked out of her
eyes, and spoke in the hushed tones of her soft voice. Geoff felt that it
was there, and it comforted him. The poor fellow was very lonely in those
days, and inclined to be homesick, as even a manly man sometimes is.

"What an awful time Adam must have had of it before Eve came!" growled
Clarence, that evening, as they sat around the fire.

"He had a pretty bad time after she came, if I remember," said Clover,
laughing.

"Ah, but he had _her_!"

"Stuff and nonsense! He was a long shot happier without her and her old
apple, I think," put in Phil. "You fellows don't know when you're well
off."

Everybody laughed.

"Phil's notion of Paradise is the High Valley and Sorrel, and no girls
about to bother and tell him not to get too tired," remarked Clover. "It's
a fair vision; but like all fair visions it must end."

And end it did next day, when Dr. Hope appeared with the carriage, and the
bags and saddles were put in, and the great bundle of wild-flowers, with
their stems tied in wet moss; and Phi