ays, stepping on to the veranda;
"come out with me. I want to breathe your flowers again."

Clarissa follows her, and together they wander up and down among the
heavy roses and drooping lilies, that are languid with heat and sleep.
Here all the children of the sun and dew seem to grow and flourish.

"No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd,
No arborett with painted blossoms drest
And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd
To bud out faire and throwe her sweete smels al arownd."

Dorian, coming up presently to meet his wife and drive her home, finds
her and Clarissa laughing gayly over one of Georgie's foreign
reminiscences. He walks so slowly over the soft green grass that they
do not hear him until he is quite close to them.

"Ah! you have come, Dorian," says Dorian's wife, with a pretty smile,
"but too soon. Clarissa and I haven't half said all we have to say
yet."

"At least I have said how glad I am to have you both back," says
Clarissa. "The whole thing has been quite too awfully dismal without
you. But for Jim and papa I should have gone mad, or something. I
never put in such a horrid time. Horace came down occasionally,--very
occasionally,--out of sheer pity, I believe; and Lord Sartoris was a
real comfort, he visited so often; but he has gone away again."

"Has he? I suppose our return frightened him," says Branscombe, in a
peculiar tone.

"I have been telling Clarissa how we tired of each other long before
the right time," says Georgie, airily, "and how we came home to escape
being bored to death by our own dulness."

Dorian laughs.

"She says what she likes," he tells Clarissa. "Has she yet put on the
dignified stop for you? It would quite subdue any one to see her at
the head of her table. Last night it was terrible. She seemed to grow
several inches taller, and looked so severe that, long before it was
time for him to retire, Martin was on the verge of nervous tears. I
could have wept for him, he looked so disheartened."

"I'm perfectly certain Martin adores me," says Mrs. Branscombe,
indignantly, "and I couldn't be severe or dignified to save my life.
Clarissa, you must forgive me if I remove Dorian at once, before he
says anything worse. He is quite untrustworthy. Good-by, dearest, and
be sure you come up to see me to-morrow. I want to ask you ever so
many more questions."

* * * * *

"Cards from the duchess for a garden-party," says Geo