unsuitable description could not have been imagined,
but Dolly agreed.

"He has nice eyes, too," she added.

"He was perfectly sweet with Phillis after lunch," said Kitty. "Took her
on his knee at once, and talked to her just as if we weren't there.
That's a good test of a man, if you like!"

"True for you," I agreed. "I could not do it with other people's
children to save my life."

"Oh, you are hopeless," said Dilly. "_Far_ too self-conscious and
dignified to climb down to the level of children, isn't he, Dolly?" She
crinkled her nose.

Dolly for once was not listening.

"What was that weird stuff the Secretary Bird spouted when you showed
Phillis to him, Kit? About her being forward, or coy, or something. It
sounded rather cheek, to me."

"Yes, I remember," said Dilly. "Can you do the way he said it?
'Sometimes forrrwarrrd, sometimes coy, she neverrr fails to pullllease!'
Like that! Gracious, how it hurts to talk Scotch!"

"I don't know, dear," said my wife thoughtfully. "It sounded rather
quaint. But I daresay all Scotch people are like that," she added
charitably.

"Perhaps it was a quotation," I observed mildly.

"Of course, that would be it. What is it out of?"

"A song called 'Phillis is my only Joy,' I think."

"Ah, then you may depend upon it," said Kitty, with the air of one
solving a mystery, "that is what the man was doing--_quoting_! Burns,
probably, or Scott, perhaps. How clever of him to think of it! And do
you know," she continued, "he said such a nice thing to me. While you
were bear-fighting with the Twins after lunch, Adrian, I said to him:
'Pity me, Mr Fordyce! My husband never ceases to express to me his
regret that he did not marry one of my sisters.' And he answered at
once, quite seriously, without stopping to think it out or anything:--'I
am sure, Mrs Inglethwaite, that his regret must be shared by countless
old admirers of yours!' Wasn't it rather sweet of him?"

Further conversation was prevented by the opening of the drawing-room
door, where the butler appeared and announced "Mr Dubberley."

Dubberley is a pillar of our party. I can best describe him by saying
that although I hold office under a Conservative Government, ten
minutes' conversation with Dubberley leaves me a confirmed Radical, and
anything like a protracted interview with him converts me into a
Socialist for the next twenty-four hours. A week-end in his society, and
I should probably buy a red shirt and send o