tion between her shots."

We passed to the next tee.

As I was addressing the ball--

"Don't top it," said Jill.

"Have I been topping them to-day?".

"No, Boy. Only do be careful. I believe there's a lark's nest down
there, and it'd be a shame----"

"There you are," said Jonah.

"Now," said I, "I'm dead certain to top it."

"Well, then, drive more to the right," said Jill. "After all, it's
only a game."

"I'll take your word for it," said I.

Of course, I topped the ball, but at the next hole my grey-eyed cousin
discovered that our caddie had a puppy in his pocket, so we won easily.

As we made for the club-house--

"Only ten days to Christmas," said Adele. "Can you believe me?"

"With an effort," said I. "It's almost too hot to be true."

Indeed, it might have been a June morning.

The valley was sleepy beneath the mid-day sun; the slopes of the
sheltering foot-hills looked warm and comfortable; naked but unashamed,
the woods were smiling; southward, a long flash spoke of the sunlit
peaks and the dead march of snow; and there, a league away, grey Pau
was basking contentedly, her decent crinoline of villas billowing about
her sides, lazily looking down on such a fuss and pother as might have
bubbled out of the pot of Revolution, but was, in fact, the hospitable
rite daily observed on the arrival of the Paris train.

"I simply must get some presents," continued my wife. "We'll start
to-morrow."

I groaned.

"You can't get anything here," I protested. "And people don't expect
presents when you're in the South of France."

"That's just when they do," said Adele. "All your friends consider
that it's a chance in a lifetime, and, if you don't take it, they never
forgive you."

"Well, I haven't got any friends," said I. "So that's that. And you
used to tell me you had very few."

"Ah," said Adele, "that was before we were engaged. That was to excite
your sympathy."

I appealed to my cousins for support.

"Nothing doing," said Jonah. "If you didn't want this sort of thing,
what did you marry for? For longer than I can remember you've seen
your brother-in-law led off like an ox to the shambles--he's there
now--financially crippled, and then compelled to tie up and address
innumerable parcels, for the simple reason that, when they're at the
shops Daphne's faculty of allotment invariably refuses to function."

Jill slid an arm through her brother's, patted his hand affectionately,
and