ar about everything," he said. "Tell me of the Long
Man--and the fawns, and why there are only six. I am having the happiest
morning I have had for years."

So Halcyone began. She glossed a good deal over the facts she had told
Mr. Carlyon upon the subject because she did not feel she knew this
stranger well enough to let him into her aunts' private affairs--so she
turned the interest to the deer themselves, and they chatted on about
all sorts of animals and their ways, and John Derringham was entranced
and felt quite aggrieved when she said it was getting late and she must
go back to the house for her early dinner. He swung himself down from
the tree by the high branch with ease and stood ready to catch her, but
with a nimbleness he did not expect, she crept round to the lower side
and was landed upon the soft turf before he could reach her.

Then he walked back with her to the broken gate, telling her about his
own old home the while, and then they paused to say good-by.

Halcyone carried a twig of freshly sprouting oak which she had brought
from the tree, having broken it off in her lightning descent.

"Give me one leaf and you keep the other," he said. "And then, whenever
I see it, I will try to remember that I must always be good and true."

With grave earnestness she did as he asked, and then opened the gate.

"I want to tell you," she said--and she looked down for a second, and
then up into his eyes from beyond the bars. "I did not like the thought
of your coming--and at first I did not like you--but now I see something
quite different at the other side of your head--Good-by."

And before he could answer, she was off as the young fawn would have
been--a flitting shape among the trees. And John Derringham walked
slowly back to the orchard house, musing as he went.

But when he got there a telegram from his Chief had arrived, recalling
him instantly to London.

And he did not see Halcyone again for several years.

CHAPTER IX

The seasons came and went with peaceful regularity, unbroken by a
jarring note from the outside world. Mr. Anderton, being well assured by
the Misses La Sarthe that his stepdaughter was receiving a splendid
education, was only too glad to leave her in peace, and Mrs. Anderton
felt her duty achieved when at the beginning of each summer and winter
she sent a supply of what she considered suitable clothes. It took
Priscilla and Hester hours to alter them to Halcyone's slender s