he frequent languor and
headache that so often kept him from sharing in their full-throated,
whole-hearted mirth. He had graduated from a Western university, and was
now going to study for a post-graduate degree at Harvard; he was tired,
and the quiet at Fernley, the sense of perfect congeniality with his
uncle, and Margaret's serene face and musical, even-toned voice, were
like balm to his over-strung nerves.

This morning his head ached, and he did not feel like study. The book
open before him gave him a kind of moral support, but he did hardly more
than glance at it from time to time. His eyes roved far and wide over
the lovely prospect that lay outside, broad stretches of sunny, rolling
meadows, dotted with clumps of trees, and framed in the arched opening
of the summer-house. This summer-house had been a favorite playhouse of
his father and uncles in their boyhood. He knew a dozen stories about
it; and now his eyes turned to the lattice walls, carved everywhere with
the familiar initials, and the devices of the four brothers Montfort:
John's egg and Jim's oyster, Roger's book and Dick's ship. What glorious
boys they must have been! This was where they used to play Curtius, and
Monte Cristo, and all manner of games; leaping over the wall into the
meadow below, deep in fern and daisies, or swinging themselves down by
the hanging branches of the old willow that peeped round one side of the
arch. Glorious boys! And then Hugh thought of his own brothers, and said
"Good old Jim!" under his breath.

Thus musing, he was aware of a voice under his latticed bower, as of
some one in the meadow below; a woman's voice, calm and melodious as
Margaret's own, but with a deeper and graver note in it.

"What did he want then, a Lovely Person? Did he want her to love him?
Well, she did, ardently; so that is all right."

A rustling followed, and the voice spoke again:

"No, he mustn't kiss her; that is not permitted. He may lie at her feet,
and gaze at her with his large, brown eyes, Philip her King, but no
kissing. She is surprised at his suggesting such a thing."

Hugh sat mute, in great perplexity. What interview was this, at which he
was unwillingly assisting? Were two rustic lovers below, taking their
ease under the old willow, whose twisted roots made an admirable seat,
as he knew? And, if so, should he be guilty of the greater offence by
keeping still, or by going away? He knew every board in the summer-house
floor, and t