, Mrs.
Fane arrived in the richness of a midsummer twilight, and Michael forgot
all about calceolarias in his happiness. All day long for many golden
days he pattered up and down the house and in and out of all the rooms
at his mother's heels. He held coils of picture-wire and hooks and
hammers and nails and balls of wool and reels of silk and strands of
art-muslin and spiders of cotton-wool and Japanese fans and plumes of
pampas grass and all the petty utilities and beauties of house
arrangement. By the end of July every room was finally arranged, and
Michael and Stella with their mother, accompanied by Nurse and Annie,
went down to the seaside to spend two wonderful months. Michael was
often allowed to sit up an extra half-hour and even when he went to bed
his mother would come to hear him say his prayers. She would sit by him,
her lovely face flushed by the rose-red August sunsets that floated in
through the open window on a sound of sea-waves. As it grew darker and,
over the noise of happy people walking about in the cool evening, a
distant band played music, his mother would lean over and kiss him good
night. He would be loath to let her go, and just as she was closing the
door quietly he would call her back and whisper 'One more kiss,' and
because that good-night kiss was the most enchanting moment in his day,
he would whisper as he held her to him very close, 'Only one more, but
much, much, much the longest kiss in all the world.'

They were indeed two very wonderful months. In the morning Michael would
sit beside his mother at breakfast, and for a great treat he would be
given the segment she so cleverly cut off from the tip of her egg. And
for another treat, he would be allowed to turn the finished egg upside
down and present it to her as a second untouched, for which she would be
very grateful and by whose sudden collapse before the tapping of the
spoon, she would be just as tremendously surprized. After the egg would
always come two delicious triangles of toast, each balancing a single
strawberry from the pot of strawberry jam. After breakfast, Michael
would walk round the heap of clinkers in the middle of the parched
seaside garden while his mother read her letters, and very soon they
would set out together to the beach, where in time they would meet Nurse
and Stella with the perambulator and the camp-stools and the bag of
greengages or William-pears. Sand castles were made and boats were
sailed or rather we