climbed, and as she reached
the top, to see England spread under her eyes like a great ring. But
that privilege was Burden's. I hope he appreciated it. Mine was to
escort Mrs. Senter. I was glad she didn't chat. I hate women who chat,
or spray adjectives over a view.

You remember it all, don't you? On one side, looking landward, we had a
Constable picture: a sky with tumbled clouds, shadowed downs, and
forests cleft by a golden mosaic of meadows. Seaward, an impressionist
sketch of Whistler's: Southampton Water and historic Portsmouth Harbour;
stretches of glittering sand with the sea lying in ragged patches on it
here and there like great pieces of broken glass. Over all, the English
sunshine pale as an alloy of gold and silver; not too dazzling, yet
discreetly cheerful, like a Puritan maiden's smile; but not like
Ellaline's. Hers can be dazzling when she is surprised and pleased.

I think I recall your talk with me on a height overlooking the
harbour--perhaps the same height. We painted a lurid picture, to harrow
our young minds, of the wreck of the _Royal George_. And we said, gazing
across the Downs, that England looked almost uninhabited. Well, it
appears no more populous now, luckily for the picture. I heard Ellaline
saying to Dick Burden that the towns and villages might be playing at
hide and seek, they concealed themselves so successfully. Also I heard
her advise him to read "Puck of Pook's Hill," and was somewhat
disappointed that she'd already had it, as I bought it for her in
Southsea yesterday. Probably she won't care to read it again. Perhaps I
had better give the book to Mrs. Senter, who is a more intellectual
woman than you and I supposed when she was playing with us all in India.
But one doesn't talk books with pretty women in the East.

You remember the day you and I walked to Winchester from Portsmouth,
starting early in the morning, with our lunch in our pockets? Well, we
came along the same way, past old William of Wykeham's Wickham, the
queer mill built of the _Chesapeake's_ timbers, and Bishops' Waltham,
where the ruins of the Episcopal palace struck me as being grander than
I had realized. Ellaline was astonished at coming upon such a splendid
monument of the past by the roadside, and was delighted to hear of the
entertainment Coeur de Lion was given in the palace after his return
from the German captivity. Of course the story of the famous "Waltham
Blacks" pleased her too. Women can always f