than her control.

Leonetta's highly pigmented and sunburnt fingers suddenly ceased their
twofold activity with the box of fondants and the pocket-portfolio of
secret papers, and held a letter long and steadily before her eyes.
Again the old gentleman opposite turned to the landscape of fields on
his right, and his loose lips worked ominously. The fixity of those keen
eyes with their tell-tale slight inward squint, as she studied the
letter, proved too much for him, particularly when she began to smile;
and his glance wandered desperately to the country he was traversing, in
the cool, pallid British greenness of which he found relief.

Evidently the letter was a piece of life, for Leonetta was now in deadly
earnest, pinching her beautiful tawny neck thoughtfully here and there
with her free hand, as she read, and breathing deeply. Her glance
travelled rapidly, too, over certain passages, and would then stop dead,
sometimes in order to allow a smile to dawn, sometimes to wander a
moment to frown at the country-side. Evidently certain portions of the
letter were quite uninteresting, or else she knew them by heart.

The letter she read was as follows:

"My own dearest Leo,

"Oh, how I miss you already! But I shan't be the _only_ one!
That's _some_ comfort. Think of church now without your
dreadful remarks about all the still more dreadful people. I
know one or two who are not going to church any more now.
Don't you feel ashamed of yourself? Don't you ever feel
ashamed of yourself? And the river on Wednesdays, and the
_park_ on Saturday afternoons! The place will be dead. It
will be a vast waste. You told me to make up to Dorothy
Garforth. But she's not _you_. She'll never have the pluck
to talk to strange young men about their motor bikes or
their horses and things. You _were_ a wonder! Still my own
dear Leo, you promised to invite me up to London to meet
your people, didn't you, and don't you dare to forget. I
shall pine away here if you do.

"I must tell you something that happened last night. Well, I
met Charlie as I was coming home from saying good-bye to
you. He was desolate. You really have been a little cruel.
He said you gave him back his match-box and gold pencil, and
that that meant you did not want anything more to do with
him. He said he had been waiting behind the usual shrubbery
in the park fo