ame
back, to be gently but firmly ordered out of that dirty place by her
new lord and master, the latter failed to take, although he did not
fail to perceive, the hint of her eyes that Jim should be asked to
dinner.

"No," said he, linking his arm in hers as they left the shed, "no
outsiders, Debbie. I want you all to myself now."

And the words and tone were so sweet to her that she could not be sorry
for the possible hurt to Jim's feelings. She was young again today,
with her world-weary husband making love to her like this. That theory
of their having come together merely to keep each other warm on the
cold road to the grave was laughingly flung to the winds. She laid her
strong right hand on his, limp upon her arm, and expanded her deep
chest to the sunny morning air.

"Oh, Claud! Oh, isn't it wonderful, after all these years! You remember
that night--that night in the garden? The seat is there still--we will
go and sit on it tonight--"

"My dear, I dare not sit out after sunset, so subject as I am to
bronchitis."

"No, no, of course not--I forgot your bronchitis. This is the time for
you to be out--and this air will soon make another man of you, dear.
Isn't it a heavenly climate? Isn't it divine, this sun? Look here,
Claud, we've got some capital horses--or we had; I'll ask Jim. What do
you say to a ride--a long, lovely bush ride, like the old rides we used
to have together?"

Words cannot describe the pang that went through her when he shook his
head indifferently, and said he was too old for such violent exercise
now.

"Stuff!" she cried angrily.--

"Besides, I haven't been on a horse for so long that I shouldn't know
how to sit him," he teased her lazily. "You wouldn't like to see me
tumble off at your hall door, before the servants, would you?"

"Oh, Claud! And to think how you used to ride!"

But of course she knew this was a joke, and laughed it off.

"It's nothing but sheer indolence," said she, patting the hand on her
arm--that shapely ivory hand, with its polished filbert nails--"and I
see that my mission in life is to cure you of it. Come, we will make a
start with a real country walk."

She began to drag him away from the bowered homestead, but he planted
his feet, and took his hand from her arm.

"Not now, Debbie," he objected gently, but with that subtle note of
mastership that had struck so sharply into Jim's sensitiveness; "it is
mail-day, and the letters will be at the house by thi