dearments took them slowly
into lampshine.

When the dripping January rains came down, Michael spent many afternoons
in the morning-room of Lily's house. Here, subject only to Doris's
exaggerated hesitation to enter, Michael would build up for himself and
Lily the indissoluble ties of a childhood that, though actually it was
spent in ignorance of each other's existence, possessed many links of
sentimental communion.

For instance, on the wall hung Cherry Ripe--the same girl in white frock
and pink sash who nearly fourteen years ago had conjured for Michael
the first hazy intimations of romance. Here she hung, staring down at
them as demurely if not quite so sheerly beautiful as of old. Lily
observed that the picture was not unlike Doris at the same age, and
Michael felt at once that such a resemblance gave it a permanent value.
Certainly his etchings of Montmartre and views of the Sussex Downs would
never be hallowed by the associations that made sacred this oleograph of
a Christmas Annual.

There were the picture-books of Randolph Caldecott tattered identically
with his own, and Michael pointed out to Lily that often they must have
sat by the fire reading the same verse at the same moment. Was not this
thought almost as fine as the actual knowledge of each other's daily
life would have been? There were other books whose pages, scrawled and
dog-eared, were softened by innumerable porings to the texture of
Japanese fairy-books. In a condition practically indistinguishable all
of these could be found both in Carlington Road and Trelawny Road.

There were the mutilated games that commemorated Christmas after
Christmas of the past. Here was the pack of Happy Families with Mrs.
Chip now a widow, Mr. Block the Barber a widower, and the two young
Grits grotesque orphans of the grocery. There were Ludo and Lotto and
Tiddledy-Winks whose counters, though terribly depleted, were still
eloquent with the undetermined squabbles and favourite colours of
childhood.

Michael was glad that Lily should spring like a lovely ghost from the
dust of familiar and forgotten relics. It had been romantic to snatch
her on a dying cadence of Verlaine out of the opalescent vistas of
October trees; but his perdurable love for her rested on these
immemorial affections whose history they shared.

Lily herself was not so sensitive to this aroma of the past as Michael.
She was indeed apt to consider his enthusiasm a little foolish, and
would won