darkly hinted at the
little rift within the lute, and somehow after that night the glamour
seemed to have departed from this honeymoon pair, and the fair seeming
was regarded with suspicion.

As regards the matter of distance, it took an easy two minutes to cover
the space between the front doors of the two houses, and there seemed an
endless number of reasons why the members of the different families
should fly round to consult each other a dozen times a day. Darsie and
Lavender, Vie and plain Hannah attended the same High School; the
Garnett boys and John Vernon the same Royal Institute, but the fact that
they walked to and from school together, and spent the intervening hours
in the same class-rooms, by no means mitigated the necessity of meeting
again during luncheon and tea hours. In holiday times the necessity
naturally increased, and bells pealed incessantly in response to tugs
from youthful hands.

Then came the time of the great servants' strike. That bell was a
perfect nuisance; ring, ring, ring the whole day long. Something else
to do than run about to open the door for a pack of children!

The two mistresses, thus coerced, issued a fiat. Once a day, and no
oftener! All arrangements for the afternoon to be made in the morning
_seance_, the rendezvous to be _outside_, not _inside_ the house.

After this came on the age of signals; whistlings outside the windows,
rattling of the railings, comes through letter-boxes and ventilation
grids, even--on occasions of special deafness--pebbles thrown against
the panes! A broken window, and a succession of whoops making the air
hideous during the progress of an extra special tea party, evoked the
displeasure of the mistresses in turns, and a second verdict went forth
against signals in all forms, whereupon the Garnetts and Vernons in
conclave deplored the hard-heartedness of grown-ups, and set their wits
to work to evolve a fresh means of communication.

"S'pose," said Russell, snoring thoughtfully, "s'pose we had a
telegraph!"

"S'pose we had an airship! One's just as easy as the other. Don't be a
juggins."

But Russell snored on unperturbed.

"I don't mean a _real_ telegraph, only a sort--of _pretend_! There's
our side window, and your back windows. If we could run a line across."

"A line of _what_?"

"String. Wire. Anything we like."

"S'pose we _did_ fix it, what then?"

"Send messages!"

"How?"

Russell pondered deeply. He was the