flooded the rock and the people moving about on it, but Nancy and Tom
remained in shadow. "Tell me, Nancy," he said, leaning over and covering
with his own the hand upon which she was resting, "tell me that I may
ask you again, for, dear Nancy, I cannot lose you." She did not draw her
hand away immediately and when she did so she did it gently.

"You're awfully good, Tom," she said and Tom's heart swelled at the
softness of her tone. Then she climbed to her feet, and--Tom picking up
the magic carpet, which had become soaked through with the dampness of
the creek bank--they made their way back to the rock.

And so ended their first love scene. That Tom's behaviour will appear
tepid, in these vigorous days, is to be feared. His own contemporaries,
of both sexes, will almost certainly be the first to point out that had
they been in his place nothing would have kept them from proceeding from
the tame seizure of Nancy's hand to some bolder action. Tom, however,
helping Nancy along over the rocks and sticks was happily oblivious of
his unconventionality. The beauteous evening did, in very truth, seem
calm and free to him, though the party on the rock was making a little
too much noise to have the holy time quiet as a nun, breathless with
adoration. His mind turned to the scrap of Wordsworth he had lately
memorized, and though he was a trifle annoyed to find that he couldn't,
even now, perhaps when he most wanted it, remember all, the phrase
"comfort and command" stayed with him and did nicely for the whole.

XIII

Tom telephoned to Mrs. Norris the next day to make certain that he might
see her. He felt that she was an ally in the matter of Nancy, and it was
important to get her advice.

He found her knitting by the yellow lamp in the library. "Well, Tommy
dear," she said, looking at him with a quizzical smile, "was the picnic
a success?"

"Mrs. Norris, you are wonderful. When I think how much I owe to your
generation. After all, I think a woman is loveliest at fifty."

"Oh, flatterer!"

"But you know you cannot get that fine _savoir vivre_ before."

"Oh dear me, how much more _savoir vivre_ I'll have when I'm eighty.
What an old charmer I'll be then! Will you come to see me when I'm
eighty, Tommy?"

"What a question!"

"Well, I hope you won't take me off on any old wishing carpet and put me
down in a damp, horrid place and give me tonsilitis."

"Who has tonsilitis?"

"Nancy, of course, and you gave i