head, gazing dreamily at the glimpse of the
far-off sea, that shows through the dark-green firs. Dulce's silvery
laugh is waking an echo lower down. There is a great sense of rest and
happiness in the hour.

A big, lazy bumblebee, tumbling sleepily into Portia's lap, wakes her
into life. It lies upon her, looking larger and blacker than its wont,
as it shows against the pallor of her gown. She starts, and draws
herself up with a half-suppressed cry.

Fabian, lifting the bee from her knees, flings it high into the air, and
sends it off on the errand it was probably bound on before it fell in
love with Portia.

"How foolish of me to be frightened of it--pretty thing," she says, with
a faint blush. "How black it looked."

"_Every_thing frightens me," says Julia Beaufort pensively,
"_everything_!"

"Do I?" asks Dicky Browne, in a tone full of abject misery. "Oh! _say_ I
don't."

"I meant insects you know, and frogs, and horrid things like that,"
lisps Julia. "And they always will come flying round one just on a
perfect night like this, when"--sentimentally--"Nature is wrapt in its
profoundest beauty!"

"I don't think I ever saw a frog fly," says Dicky Browne, innocently.
"Is it nice to look at? Is it funny?"

"No! it's only silly--like you!" says Dulce throwing a rosebud at him,
which he catches dexterously.

"Thank you," he says, meekly, whether for the speech or the flower, he
leaves vague.

"Stephen Gower is coming over here to-night," says Roger suddenly.

"To-night? Why didn't you ask him to dinner?" asks Dulce, a note of
surprise in her tone.

"I did ask him, but, for some reason I now forget, he could not come. He
confessed he was lonely, however, in that big barn of a house, and said
he would feel deeply grateful if you would permit him to drop in later
on. I said you would; and advised him to drop in by all means, though
how people do that has always been a puzzle to me."

"Who is Stephen Gower?" asks Portia, curiously, of no one in particular.
She is leaning back in her chair, and is fanning herself languidly.

"He is Roger's _Fidus Achates_--his second self--his very soul!" says
Dicky Browne, enthusiastically. "He is a thing apart. We must, in fact,
be careful of him, lest he break. At least so I have been told."

"I thought you knew him, too," says Dulce. "I always believed you and
Roger, and this wonderful Stephen Gower, were all at college together."

"You wronged Dicky, albeit unwittingl