ce mind, eh?'

'Yes, I did, when you used to look so gravely at me, when we met in the
street, I think my heart was nearly breaking, you know you tried to
think I was a flirt, and--'

'Never mind now, sweetheart, it was blind of me not to see through it
all, and if you only could have guessed how I was longing to take you in
my arms, to ask you why you sent me away, you would not have looked so
cold, and--'

It is her turn to interrupt this time, which she does by kissing him.
'Do you know,' she says, 'you nearly made me forget what I was going to
say--'

'Is it of great importance?' asks he.

'Yes, it is. Don't you think it would be nice to ask Mabel and the
children down here, and we might all go back to London together. I know
Teddy would like the sands here; and there is plenty of room; shall we?'

Jimmy says yes, although he would have preferred to remain alone for a
little longer.

There is something so nice in knowing that the lovely little person who
is always with him, is his very own to take care of and protect against
everything, for all the years that lie before them. And he fears to be
disturbed, in case it may all prove a dream, and burst like a bubble
with the slightest contact of the outer world. But a week later Mabel
arrives accompanied by Teddy and the baby; George and Paul, whom Lippa
has also begged to come, turn up, and the lovely days that follow, when
the sun creeps into their rooms in the early morning enticing them out,
where the hedges are covered with sweet smelling honey-suckle and the
fields are carpeted with brilliant red poppies, and a walk will take
them to the 'Garden of Sleep,' where among the tombstones and long grass
they can watch the sea sparkling in a golden haze, and listen to the
waves as they break on the yellow sands; where the birds are ever
trilling forth their songs without words; those days for ever are stored
in the minds of some of them as the loveliest summer man could wish
for.

CHAPTER XI

'Love pardons the unpardonable past.'--CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

It is six o'clock. The tea things have been taken away, and the
occupants of the little drawing-room are all apparently lazily enjoying
themselves.

Mabel has the baby on her knee, her husband is dozing in an armchair,
Jimmy is sitting half-in half-out of the window, Paul is reading, and
Philippa is lying on the sofa.

'Lippa,' says Dalrymple, 'sing us something.'

'What would you like?' she an