ine was so bright and warm, the birds were singing so joyously
in the thickets, the rooks cawed so loudly as they wheeled and circled
like a dense black battalion at drill up against the cloudless blue of
the sky, that it was hard to believe the diary people had not made a
mistake in their reckonings or stupidly mixed their dates.

Indeed, one would have been quite sure they had done something of the
sort, and that it was still summer, only for the unmistakable signs and
tokens of harvest that everywhere met the eye. In the fields on the
hillside sloping up to meet the sky there were stooks of rich, ripe,
yellow grain still standing, waiting to be carted home to Mr. Grey's
stackyard, and there heaped into high domed castles round which children
loved to play or linger silently, watching the sleek dun mice that
darted so swiftly hither and thither, planning for themselves such
glorious games in and out and round about their well-stocked
store-houses amongst the crisp, rustling corn. Red-cheeked apples,
dark-skinned winter pears ripened slowly on the orchard trees. Big
bronze plums and late Victorias mellowed against the garden wall. And
now and then when a breeze, gentle as the flutter of a fairy's wing,
fanned the branches of the stately spreading lime tree that was comrade
of the shining cedar on the lawn, there dropped on the grass border
beside the tall hollyhocks a pale dry leaf, falling softly to the earth
from which it grew, silently as a tired bird sinks to her nest amongst
the clover blooms of summer.

On a wide wooden seat beneath the sheltering branches of the cedar tree
Captain Dene sat with his little ones close beside him. They were very
close to him indeed--as close as they could come: for Darby was bunched
up on the bench, legs and all, with his head tucked under his father's
elbow; while Joan was folded in his arms so tightly that the golden
tangle of her shining curls mingled with the deeper hue of the dark
cropped head which bent so lovingly over hers.

And no wonder that those three cuddled so close together this balmy
September afternoon. No wonder they looked sad in spite of the sunbeams
that boldly forced their way through the spikes on the cedar branches in
long, slanting shafts of light that rested lovingly on Joan's burnished
hair like the tender touch of caressing fingers. And no wonder, either,
if they were all three silent--not because there was nothing to say, but
because there were so man