is n't grave, is gaiest. Blackbirds were
dropping their liquid notes, thrushes were singing, hidden in the
trees. Here and there, in spaces enclosed by hurdles, sheep browsed or
drowsed, still faintly a-blush from recent shearing. The may was in
bloom, the tardy may, and the laburnum. The sun shone ardently, and
the air was quick with the fragrant responses of the earth.

A hundred yards up the avenue, Anthony Craford stopped his fly, a
shabby victoria, piled with the manifold leather belongings of a
traveller, and dismounted.

"I 'll walk the rest of the way," he said to the flyman, giving him his
fare. "Drive on to the house. The servants will take charge of the
luggage."

"Yes, sir," answered the flyman, briskly, and flicked his horse:
whereat, displaying a mettle one was by no means prepared for, the
horse dashed suddenly off in a great clattering gallop, and the ancient
vehicle behind him followed with a succession of alarming leaps and
lurches.

"See," declaimed a voice, in a sort of whimsical recitative,

"See how the young cabs bound,
As to the tabor's sound,--"

a full-bodied baritone, warm and suave, that broke, at the end, into a
note or two of laughter.

Anthony turned.

On the greensward, a few paces distant, stood a man in white flannels:
rather a fat man, to avow the worst at once, but, for the rest,
distinctly a pleasant-looking; with a smiling, round, pink face,
smooth-shaven, and a noticeable pair of big and bright blue eyes.

"Hello. Is that you, old Rosygills?" Anthony said, with a phlegm that
seemed rather premeditated.

"Now, what a question," protested the other, advancing to meet him. He
walked with an odd kind of buoyant, measured step, as if he were
keeping time to a silent dance-tune. "All I can tell you is that it's
someone very nice and uncommonly like me. You should know at your age
that a person's identity is quite the most mysterious mystery under
heaven. You really must n't expect me to vouch for mine. How-d'ye-do?"

He extended, casually, in the manner of a man preoccupied, a plump,
pink left hand. With his right hand he held up and flaunted, for
exhibition, a drooping bunch of poppies, poignantly red and green: the
subject, very likely, of his preoccupation, for, "Are n't they
beauties?" he demanded, and his manner had changed to one of fervour,
nothing less. "They 're the spoils of a raid on Farmer Blogrim's
chalk-pit. If eyes were made for seeing, s