d all."

Luke heaved a deep sigh, as if with this brief if ungrammatical
statement, his own heart had been unburdened of a tiresome load.

"Your uncle Arthur?" she repeated somewhat bewildered.

"Yes. You never knew him, did you?"

"No," she said, "I never knew him, though as a baby I must have seen
him. I was only three, I think, when he died. But I never heard that
he had been married. I am sure father never knew."

"Nor did I, nor did Uncle Rad, nor any of us. The whole thing is
either a thunderbolt or . . . an imposture."

"Tell me," she said, "a little more clearly, Luke dear, will you? I am
feeling quite muddled." And now it was she who led the way to the
isolated seat beneath that group of silver birch, whose baby leaves
trembled beneath the rough kiss of the cool April breeze.

They sat down together and on the gravelled path in front of them a
robin hopped half shyly, half impertinently, about and gazed with
tiny, inquisitive eyes on the doings of these big folk. All around
them the twitter of bird throats filled the air with its magic, its
hymn to the reawakened earth, and drowned in this pleasing solitude
the distant sounds of the busy city that seemed so far away from this
secluded nook inhabited by birds and flowers, and by two dwellers in
Fata Morgana's land.

"Tell me first," said Louisa, in her most prosy, most matter of fact
tone of voice, "all that is known about your uncle Arthur."

"Well, up to now, I individually knew very little about him. He was
the next eldest brother to Uncle Rad, and my father was the youngest
of all. When Uncle Rad succeeded to the title, Arthur was
heir-presumptive of course. But as you know he died--as was supposed
unmarried--nineteen years ago, and my poor dear father was killed in
the hunting field the following year. I was a mere kid then and the
others were babies--orphans the lot of us. My mother died when Edith
was born. Uncle Rad was said to be a confirmed bachelor. He took us
all to live with him and was father, mother, elder brother, elder
sister to us all. Bless him!"

Luke paused abruptly, and Louisa too was silent. Only the song of a
thrush soaring upward to the skies called for that blessing which
neither of them at that moment could adequately evoke.

"Yes," said Louisa at last, "I knew all that."

Lord Radclyffe and his people were all of the same world as herself.
She knew all about the present man's touching affection for the
children of his y