ly between his offspring. His wife was
standing precisely as he had imagined her, in a pale blue frock open at
the neck, with a narrow black band round the waist, and little accordion
pleats below. She looked her coolest. Her smile, when she turned her
head, hardly seemed to take Mr. Bosengate seriously enough. He placed
his lips below one of her half-drooped eyelids. She even smelled
of roses. His children began to dance round their mother, and Mr.
Bosengate,--firmly held between them, was also compelled to do this,
until she said:

"When you've quite done, let's have tea!"

It was not the greeting he had imagined coming along in the car. Earwigs
were plentiful in the summer-house--used perhaps twice a year, but
indispensable to every country residence--and Mr. Bosengate was not
sorry for the excuse to get out again. Though all was so pleasant, he
felt oddly restless, rather suffocated; and lighting his pipe, began to
move about among the roses, blowing tobacco at the greenfly; in war-time
one was never quite idle! And suddenly he said:

"We're trying a wretched Tommy at the assizes."

His wife looked up from a rose.

"What for?"

"Attempted suicide."

"Why did he?"

"Can't stand the separation from his wife."

She looked at him, gave a low laugh, and said:

"Oh dear!"

Mr. Bosengate was puzzled. Why did she laugh? He looked round, saw that
the children were gone, took his pipe from his mouth, and approached
her.

"You look very pretty," he said. "Give me a kiss!"

His wife bent her body forward from the waist, and pushed her lips out
till they touched his moustache. Mr. Bosengate felt a sensation as if he
had arisen from breakfast, without having eaten marmalade. He mastered
it, and said:

"That jury are a rum lot."

His wife's eyelids flickered. "I wish women sat on juries."

"Why?"

"It would be an experience."

Not the first time she had used that curious expression! Yet her life
was far from dull, so far as he could see; with the new interests
created by the war, and the constant calls on her time made by the
perfection of their home life, she had a useful and busy existence.
Again the random thought passed through him: 'But she never tells me
anything!' And suddenly that lugubrious khaki-clad figure started up
among the rose bushes. "We've got a lot to be thankful for!" he said
abruptly. "I must go to work!" His wife, raising one eyebrow, smiled.
"And I to weep!" Mr. Bosengate laughed--s