for a while. Then Margaret fell a-humming to
herself; and the air--will you believe it?--chanced by the purest
accident to be that foolish, senseless old song they used to sing
together four years ago.

Billy chuckled. "Let's!" he obscurely pleaded.

Spring prompted her.

"Oh, where have you been, Billy boy?"
queried Margaret's wonderful contralto,

"Oh, where have you been, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Oh, where have you been, charming Billy?"

She sang it in a low, hushed voice, just over her breath. Not looking
at him, however. And oh, what a voice! thought Billy Woods. A voice
that was honey and gold and velvet and all that is most sweet and rich
and soft in the world! Find me another voice like that, you _prime
donne!_ Find me a simile for it, you uninventive poets! Indeed, I'd
like to see you do it.

But he chimed in, nevertheless, with his pleasant throaty baritone,
and lilted his own part quite creditably.

"I've been to seek a wife,
She's the joy of my life;
She's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother"--

Only Billy sang it "father," just as they used to do.

And then they sang it through, did Margaret and Billy--sang of the
dimple in her chin and the ringlets in her hair, and of the cherry
pies she achieved with such celerity--sang as they sat in the
spring-decked meadow every word of that inane old song that is so
utterly senseless and so utterly unforgettable.

It was a quite idiotic performance. I set it down to the snares of
Spring--to her insidious, delightful snares of scent and sound and
colour that--for the moment, at least--had trapped these young people
into loving life infinitely.

But I wonder who is responsible for that tatter of rhyme and melody
that had come to them from nowhere in particular? Mr. Woods, as he sat
up at the conclusion of the singing vigorously to applaud, would have
shared his last possession, his ultimate crust, with that unknown
benefactor of mankind. Indeed, though, the heart of Mr. Woods just now
was full of loving kindness and capable of any freakish magnanimity.

For--will it be believed?--Mr. Woods, who four years ago had thrown
over a fortune and exiled himself from his native land, rather than
propose marriage to Margaret Hugonin, had no sooner come again into
her presence and looked once into her perfectly fathomless eyes than
he could no more have left her of his own accord than a moth can turn
his back to a lighted candle. He had fancied h