sorry I
was so cross about Greece, but it came on the top of the dahlias."

Rather a hard voice said: "Thank you, mother; that doesn't matter a
bit."

"And you are right, too--Greece will be all right; you can go if the
Miss Alans will have you."

"Oh, splendid! Oh, thank you!"

Mr. Beebe followed. Lucy still sat at the piano with her hands over the
keys. She was glad, but he had expected greater gladness. Her mother
bent over her. Freddy, to whom she had been singing, reclined on the
floor with his head against her, and an unlit pipe between his lips.
Oddly enough, the group was beautiful. Mr. Beebe, who loved the art of
the past, was reminded of a favourite theme, the Santa Conversazione,
in which people who care for one another are painted chatting together
about noble things--a theme neither sensual nor sensational, and
therefore ignored by the art of to-day. Why should Lucy want either to
marry or to travel when she had such friends at home?

"Taste not when the wine-cup glistens,
Speak not when the people listens,"

she continued.

"Here's Mr. Beebe."

"Mr. Beebe knows my rude ways."

"It's a beautiful song and a wise one," said he. "Go on."

"It isn't very good," she said listlessly. "I forget why--harmony or
something."

"I suspected it was unscholarly. It's so beautiful."

"The tune's right enough," said Freddy, "but the words are rotten. Why
throw up the sponge?"

"How stupidly you talk!" said his sister. The Santa Conversazione was
broken up. After all, there was no reason that Lucy should talk about
Greece or thank him for persuading her mother, so he said good-bye.

Freddy lit his bicycle lamp for him in the porch, and with his usual
felicity of phrase, said: "This has been a day and a half."

"Stop thine ear against the singer--"

"Wait a minute; she is finishing."

"From the red gold keep thy finger;
Vacant heart and hand and eye
Easy live and quiet die."

"I love weather like this," said Freddy.

Mr. Beebe passed into it.

The two main facts were clear. She had behaved splendidly, and he had
helped her. He could not expect to master the details of so big a change
in a girl's life. If here and there he was dissatisfied or puzzled, he
must acquiesce; she was choosing the better part.

"Vacant heart and hand and eye--"

Perhaps the song stated "the better part" rather too strongly. He half
fancied that the soaring accompaniment--which he did not lose in