old acquaintance surprised Andrews by appearing in the Gardens and
engaged her in a conversation so delightful that Robin was forgotten to
the extent of being allowed to follow her sparrows round a clump of
shrubbery out of sight.

It was while she watched them that she heard footsteps that stopped near
her. She looked up. A big boy in Highland kilts and bonnet and sporan
was standing by her. He spread and curved his red mouth, then began to
run and prance round in a circle, capering like a Shetland pony to
exhibit at once his friendliness and his prowess. After a minute or two
he stopped, breathing fast and glowing.

"My pony in Scotland does that. His name is Chieftain. I'm called Donal.
What are you called?"

"Robin," she answered, her lips and voice trembling with joy. He was so
beautiful.

They began to play together while Andrews' friend recounted intimate
details of a country house scandal.

Donal picked leaves from a lilac bush. Robin learned that if you laid a
leaf flat on the seat of a bench you could prick beautiful patterns on
the leaf's greenness. Donal had--in his rolled down stocking--a little
dirk. He did the decoration with the point of this while Robin looked
on, enthralled.

Through what means children so quickly convey to each other the entire
history of their lives is a sort of occult secret. Before Donal was
taken home, Robin knew that he lived in Scotland and had been brought to
London on a visit, that his other name was Muir, that the person he
called "mother" was a woman who took care of him. He spoke of her quite
often.

"I will bring one of my picture-books to-morrow," he said grandly. "Can
you read at all?"

"No," answered Robin, adoring him. "What are picture books?"

"Haven't you any?" he blurted out.

She lifted her eyes to the glowing blueness of his and said quite
simply, "I haven't anything."

His old nurse's voice came from the corner where she sat.

"I must go back to Nanny," he said, feeling, somehow, as if he had been
running fast. "I'll come to-morrow and bring _two_ picture books."

He put his strong little eight-year-old arms round her and kissed her
full on the mouth. It was the first time, for Robin. Andrews did not
kiss. There was no one else.

"Don't you like to be kissed?" said Donal, uncertain because she looked
so startled and had not kissed him back.

"Kissed," she repeated, with a small caught breath. "Ye--es." She knew
now what it was. It was being