of the engine, the thin lines----Do you see it? I
think very highly of it. An aeroplane has a personality, like
Carville.

"Well, now you must send me news of your side. I wish I could tell
you what he is going to do, but D'Aubigne says that is a secret.
One thing he has told me, and that is that they are going to fit
the machine with a wireless telephone so that he can talk to _The
Morning_ office while he is flying. Wonders will never cease!

"I like Mac's colour prints. The effect of the sky over the steamer
is quite topping. Where painting in oil on a copper plate seems to
fail is in the detail. The colour spreads so. The red port light of
the vessel is much too large. However, I shall certainly spoil
some paper trying to out-do Mac.

"Kind regards to all. Write soon,
"Yours ever,
"CECIL."

As I folded up the sheets and thrust them into the envelope, Mac
looked across at me. Seeing that I had no inkling of his thought he
remarked with some slight irritation:

"Wonder when the deuce that chap's coming back?"

"Where's he gone?" asked Bill, holding up the collar bag to see the
effect.

We did not even know that.

"Oh," I said, "Mediterranean, I suppose."

To us the Mediterranean is a far-off beautiful dream. We sat trying
to visualize for ourselves the incredible fate of visiting the
Mediterranean as we might take the cars for Broadway. I heard Bill
sigh softly. Mac's voice, when he spoke, was gruff.

"I'd ask the kids if I were you," he said.

"I can do that," I agreed dreamily.

Sometimes, it must be admitted, we get homesick. It generally
happens when we have letters from home. We felt rather keenly then,
the shrewd poignancy of Mr. Carville's description of himself as an
alien. But to us it implied a subdued if passionate desire to see
again the quiet landscape of England. The painter-cousin's sketch
of the aeroplane near a rick, sunk in the ditch by a hedge, in the
clear transparent afternoon light of late October, appealed to us.
To see a quickset hedge again ... we sighed.

No doubt we would have allowed the daily flow and return of life's
business to oust our neighbours' fortunes from our minds, and
waited patiently for Mr. Carville's reappearance, had not a most
exciting game of cow-