lity. If you mock me I will smite you, and if you
tell anybody I will never forgive you. So much so, that I almost don't
think I'll send this letter. Anyway, I'll sleep over it. So good-night,
my Cherry--oh! "Your,
"FLEUR."
VIII
IDYLL ON GRASS

When those two young Forsytes emerged from the chine lane, and set their
faces east toward the sun, there was not a cloud in heaven, and the Downs
were dewy. They had come at a good bat up the slope and were a little
out of breath; if they had anything to say they did not say it, but
marched in the early awkwardness of unbreakfasted morning under the songs
of the larks. The stealing out had been fun, but with the freedom of the
tops the sense of conspiracy ceased, and gave place to dumbness.

"We've made one blooming error," said Fleur, when they had gone half a
mile. "I'm hungry."

Jon produced a stick of chocolate. They shared it and their tongues were
loosened. They discussed the nature of their homes and previous
existences, which had a kind of fascinating unreality up on that lonely
height. There remained but one thing solid in Jon's past--his mother;
but one thing solid in Fleur's--her father; and of these figures, as
though seen in the distance with disapproving faces, they spoke little.

The Down dipped and rose again toward Chanctonbury Ring; a sparkle of far
sea came into view, a sparrow-hawk hovered in the sun's eye so that the
blood-nourished brown of his wings gleamed nearly red. Jon had a passion
for birds, and an aptitude for sitting very still to watch them;
keen-sighted, and with a memory for what interested him, on birds he was
almost worth listening to. But in Chanctonbury Ring there were none--its
great beech temple was empty of life, and almost chilly at this early
hour; they came out willingly again into the sun on the far side. It was
Fleur's turn now. She spoke of dogs, and the way people treated them.
It was wicked to keep them on chains! She would like to flog people who
did that. Jon was astonished to find her so humanitarian. She knew a
dog, it seemed, which some farmer near her home kept chained up at the
end of his chicken run, in all weathers, till it had almost lost its
voice from barking!

"And the misery is," she said vehemently, "that if the poor thing didn't
bark at every one who passes it wouldn't be kept there. I do think men
are cunning brutes. I've let it go twice, on the sly; it's nearly bitten
me both times, and t