d to behave with incredible amiability, and superb and
sunny weather blessed Lady Nottingham's rash experiment. Everywhere the
spring triumphed; on the chestnut trees below which Jeannie and Lord
Lindfield had sat on the afternoon of the thunderstorm last year a
million glutinous buds swelled and burst into delicate five-fingered
hands of milky green; and on the beech-trunks was spread the soft green
powder of minute mosses. The new grass of the year was shooting up
between the older spikes, making a soft and short-piled velvet, on which
the clumps of yellow crocuses broke like the dancing reflection of sun
on water. Daffodils danced, too, in shady places, a company of nymphs,
and the celandines were like the burnished gold of some illuminated
manuscript of spring.

And all these tokens of the renewed and triumphant life of the world
were but the setting to that company of happy hearts assembled by the
Thames' side. The time of the singing bird had come, and their hearts
were in tune with it.

The little party, so it had been originally planned, were to disperse on
the Wednesday after Easter, but on the Tuesday various secret
conferences were held, and with much formality a round-robin was signed
and presented to Lady Nottingham, stating that her guests were so much
pleased with their quarters that they unanimously wished to stop an
extra day.

So they stopped an extra day, another day of burgeoning spring, and were
very content. Tom was content also next morning, for he went with
Jeannie to her home.

THE END.

* * * * *

ESTABLISHED 1798

[Illustration]

T. NELSON
AND SONS

PRINTERS AND
PUBLISHERS

Notes on
Nelson's New Novels.

_No work of unwholesome character or of second-rate quality
will be included in this Series._

The novel is to-day _the_ popular form of literary art. This is
proved by the number of novels published, and by the enormous sales
of fiction at popular prices.

While _Reprints_ of fiction may be purchased for a few pence, _New
Fiction_ is still a luxury.

The author of a New Novel loses his larger audience, the public are
denied the privilege of enjoying his latest work, because of the
prohibitive price of 4s. 6d.