r two hours, for a long last good-bye and that
you never turned up. I know what you mean about him, that he
isn't smart and clean and all that, but he is rather nice
all the same. Almost the best we knew. I think the hair on
his hands, as you pointed out, made up for a heap of other
shortcomings in him. But I know what you mean. He's a little
rough and there's an end of it. I thought of telling him to
write to you; but then it struck me you would not like him
to. He said you were a flirt, and that you would only have
a rich man. I said it wasn't that a bit, that he had quite
misunderstood you. I couldn't tell him the truth, could
I?--that he wasn't altogether '_toothsome_,' as you call it.
He said he had seen us talking to that motor-cyclist fellow
in the park last Saturday, and that proved it. I said it
proved nothing, because we did not know then that he was one
of the wealthiest boys in the county. However he seemed very
bitter.

"Did you really give him so much encouragement? Of course
men _do_ think it a lot if you let them kiss you. Aren't
they stupid? They can't understand that even if one does not
love them overmuch one wants to know what it's like. And you
_did_ like pretending you were deeply in love, didn't you
now?--all the time? I tell you who'll be glad you've gone,
Alice Dewlap. She was sweet on Charlie long before you met
him, because Kitty told me so.

"Oh, Leo, you were a wicked creature, a regular godsend!
What shall we do without you! _Do_ ask me to come soon.
That's cool, isn't it? Asking for an invitation. But you
know what I mean. Think of me in church next Sunday. Good
Lord deliver us! Tell me what to say to Charlie if he
bothers me about you again. And don't forget to tell me all
that happens in London. Describe all the men you meet
minutely,--you know to the smallest detail as you used to
here. You taught me to notice heaps of things I should never
have thought of.

"Good-bye my dearest treasure-trove, with heaps of love and
kisses.

"Yours for ever and ever,

"Nessy."

The old gentleman lost sight of Leonetta during the lunch interval; but
when she returned from the restaurant car, slightly flushed, and her
eyelids lazily drooping, he concluded th