tic life.

He was smiling to himself still as he walked up the hill homewards.
"Winter is over and past, and the spring is come," he murmured to
himself. And to think that a few hours ago the fog was creeping over the
City!

CHAPTER XVIII

HALCYON WEATHER

Mrs. Morres was looking benignantly, for her, at Sir Robin Drummond.

"Well, I must say I'm pleased to see you," she said. "It's very handsome
of you, too, to give up the affairs of the nation for an old woman like
me. How do you suppose things are getting on without you?"

"The House is not sitting this afternoon. You know it rises for the
Easter vacation to-morrow."

"On Thursday I go down to Hazels. I wanted that bad person, Mary Gray,
to come with me. She says she has to work at her book. Did you ever hear
such stuff and nonsense? As though the world can't get on without one
young woman's book. I told her she could do it at Hazels. She says she
couldn't--that she'll have to be out all day long. London will not tempt
her out, she says. Is she to go bending her back and dimming her eyes
while the lambs are at play in the fields and the primroses thick in the
woods?"

"She's an obstinate person, Mrs. Morres. When she has made up her mind
to do a thing----"

"Ah! you know her pretty well."

"We first met about nine years ago."

"Dear me! I had no idea that you were such old friends. I thought you
met first in this house."

"Lady Anne Hamilton, the old lady who adopted Miss Gray, was my mother's
friend."

He said nothing about the fact that twelve hours ago he had not known
Mary Gray for the child he had played with for one afternoon, nor of the
long gap between that occasion and their next meeting. Not from any
disingenuousness; but he had a feeling that he liked to keep that
meeting of long ago to himself.

"Dear me, to be sure you would be interested in Mary. You would know a
good deal about her. Nine years--it is a long time."

If he had been the most consummate plotter he could not better have
paved the way for the suggestion he was about to make.

"Put off your return to Hazels till Saturday morning. I want to take you
and Miss Gray into the country for a day on Thursday."

"Indeed, young man! And wait for the Saturday crowd of holiday-makers! A
nice figure I should be struggling among them."

"I will be at Victoria to see you off."

"Oh, you needn't do that." Mrs. Morres turned about with the
inconsequence of her sex. "I've brou