rpence-half-penny. It
isn't more than three months since you were crying your eyes out about
that fellow Hanbury----'

'You were as anxious as any one he should be sent away,' retorted
Madge. 'It appears I can't please every one. Perhaps, on the whole,
it would be as well to continue the game, for I only want three to be
out.'

Tom gave up. He continued the game, and played so savagely and so well
that poor Madge never got her three. And he did not recur to that
subject except to say the last thing at night, as the girls were
leaving--

'Look here, Madge, that fellow Hanbury had better take care.'

'I suppose he can look after himself,' said Madge. 'I have nothing to
do with him. Only you can't expect me not to be sorry for him. And
how am I to send him away when I dare not speak to him? And do you
think the streets of Brighton belong to me?'

Tom again gave up, but was more convinced than ever that women were
strange creatures, who could not be straightforward even when they
tried. From that and similar generalisations, however, he invariably
excepted Nan. Nan did not belong to womankind as considered as a
section of the human race. Nan was Nan.

The next afternoon Captain King called to say good-bye. He found the
girls very busy over Christmas cards. Madge was painting little
studies of flowers for exceptionally favoured people, and she invited
him to look over these.

'They are very pretty,' he said. 'I hope the people who are fortunate
enough to get them will value them. I mean they are not like ordinary
Christmas cards.'

'Oh, if you like them,' said Madge, modestly, 'you might take one for
yourself.'

'May I?' he said, regarding her, 'and may I choose the one?'

'Oh yes, certainly,' she answered,

'I know the one I should like to take,' he said, still regarding her.
'This one.'

It was a little bit of forget-me-not, very nicely painted--from memory.
He showed it to her.

'May I take this one with me?' he said.

'Yes,' she answered, in a very low voice, and with her eyes cast down.

After that there was a brief silence, only broken by the sound of Miss
Edith's pen, that young lady being at the other side of the table
addressing envelopes.

Captain Frank went back to Wiltshire, greatly treasuring that bit of
cardboard, and making it the basis of many audacious guesses at the
future. Nan came home from Lewes for Christmas; and Madge was
particularly affectionate towards her.