mething beyond mere physical facts, they can invent anything, that is
if they happen to be endowed with sufficient imagination."

"Then the devil must help them invent," said Miss Tibbutt with exceeding
firmness.

After dinner they had coffee in the garden. A big moon was coming up in
the dusk behind the trees, its light throwing the shadows dark and soft
on the grass.

"It's so astonishingly silent after London," said Trix, gazing at the
blue-grey velvet of the sky.

She looked more than ever elfin-like, with the moonlight falling on her
fair hair and pointed oval face, and the shimmering green of her dress.

"I wonder why we ever go to bed on moonlight nights," she pursued.
"Brilliant sunshine always tempts us to do something--a long walk, a
drive, or boating on a river. Over and over again we say, 'Now, the very
next fine day we'll do--so and so.' But no one ever dreams of saying,
'Now, the next moonlight night we'll have a picnic.' I wonder why not?"

"Because," said Doctor Hilary smiling, and watching her, "the old and
staid folk have no desire to lose their sleep, and--well, the conventions
are apt to stand in the way of the young and romantic."

"Conventions," sighed Trix, "are the bane of one's existence. They hamper
all one's most cherished desires until one is of an age when the desires
become non-existent. My aunt Lilla is always saying to me, 'When you're a
much older woman, dearest.' And I reply, 'But, Aunt Lilla, _now_ is the
moment.' I know, by experience, later is no good. When I was a tiny child
my greatest desire was to play with all the grubbiest children in the
parks. Of course I was dragged past them by a haughty and righteous
nurse. I can talk to them now if I want to, and even wheel their
perambulators. But it would have been so infinitely nicer to wheel a very
dirty baby in a very ramshackle perambulator when I was eight.
Conventions are responsible for an enormous lot of lost opportunities."

"Mightn't they be well lost?" suggested Father Dormer.

Trix looked across at him.

"Serious or nonsense?" she demanded.

"Whichever you like," he replied, a little twinkle in his eyes.

"Oh, serious," interpolated Miss Tibbutt.

Trix leant a little forward, resting her chin on her hands.

"Well, seriously then, conventions--those that are merely conventions for
their own sake,--are detestable, and responsible for an enormous lot of
unhappiness. 'My dear (mimicked Trix), you can be quite poli