well. She looked absurdly young. The brown and rose-red of her
complexion was clear as that of the little maiden who had fought with,
and overcome, and kissed the rough Welsh pony refusing the grip by the
roadside long ago. The hint of a moustache emphasised the upturned
corners of her mouth--but that was rather captivating. Her eyes danced,
under eyelids which fluttered for the moment. She was not beautiful,
not a woman to make men run mad. Yet the comeliness of her body, and
the spirit to which that body served as index, was so unmistakably
healthful, so sincere, that surely no sane man, once gathering her into
his arms, need ask a better blessing.--"But," Ormiston went on, still
watching her, "nothing would satisfy Dick but he must see you. With
many injunctions regarding his safety, Katherine made him over to me
for the afternoon. I'm on duty, you see. Where he goes, I'm bound to go
also--even to the destruction of your poor tulips."

Miss Cathcart made no direct answer.

"Sit here, Dickie," she said, pointing to a sofa.

"But you don't really mind our coming in, do you?" he asked, rather
anxiously.

The young lady placed herself beside him, drew his hand on to her knee,
patted it gently.

"Mind? No; on the whole, I don't think I do mind very much. In fact, I
think I should probably have minded very much more if you had gone away
without asking for me."

"There, I told you so, Uncle Roger," the boy said triumphantly. Camp
had jumped up on to the sofa too. He put his arm comfortably around the
dog's neck. It was as well to acquire support on both sides, for the
surface of the glazed chintz was slippery, inconveniently unsustaining
to his equilibrium. "It's an awfully long time since I've seen Mary,"
he continued, "more than three weeks."

"Yes, an awfully long time," Ormiston echoed, "more than six years."

"Dear Dickie," she said; "how pretty of you! Do you always keep count
of my visits?"

"Of course I do. They were about the best things that ever happened,
till Uncle Roger came home."

Forgetting herself, Mary Cathcart raised her eyes to Ormiston's in
appeal. The boy's little declaration stirred all the latent motherhood
in her. His fortunes at once passed so very far beyond, and fell so far
short of, the ordinary lot. She wondered whether, and could not but
trust that, this old friend and newcomer was not too self-centred, too
hardened by ability and success to appreciate the intimate pathos of
the p