e had once sat. He looked
at her. And she, remembering, half turned her face from him; and, as she
stooped and felt for a soft dry place for the child to sit on, she
smiled, half unconsciously, a shy and tender smile.

Then he saw, beside her half-turned face, the face of another woman,
smiling, shyly and tenderly, another smile; and his heart smote him with
the sorrow of his sin.

They sat down, all three, under the beech tree; and Peggy took, first
Majendie's hand, then Anne's hand, and held them together in her lap.

"Mummy," said she, "aren't you glad that daddy came? It wouldn't be half
so nice without him, would it?"

"No," said Anne, "it wouldn't."

"Mummy, you don't say that as if you meant it."

"Oh, Peggy, of course I meant it."

"Yes, but you didn't make it sound so."

"Peggy," said Majendie, "you're a terribly observant little person."

"She's a little person who sometimes observes all wrong."

"No, mummy, I don't. You never talk to daddy like you talk to me."

"You're a little girl, dear, and daddy's a big grown-up man."

"That's not what I mean, though. You've got a grown-up voice for me, too.
I don't mean your grown-up voice. I mean, mummy, you talk to daddy as
if--as if you hadn't known him a very long time. And you talk to me as if
you'd known me--oh, ever so long. _Have_ you known me longer than you've
known daddy?"

Majendie gazed with feigned abstraction at the shoulder of the hill
visible through the branches of the trees.

"Bless you, sweetheart, I knew daddy long before you were ever thought
of."

"When was I thought of, mummy?"

"I don't know, darling."

"Do you know, daddy?"

"Yes, Peggy. _I_ know. You were thought of here, in this wood, under this
tree, on mummy's birthday, between eight and nine years ago."

"Who thought of me?"

"Ah, that's telling."

"Who thought of me, mummy?"

"Daddy and I, dear."

"And you forgot, and daddy remembered."

"Yes. I've got a rather better memory than your mother, dear."

"You forgot my old birthday, daddy."

"I haven't forgotten your mother's old birthday, though."

Peggy was thinking. Her forehead was all wrinkled with the intensity of
her thought.

"Mummy--am I only seven?"

"Only seven, Peggy."

"Then," said Peggy, "you _did_ think of me before I was born. How did you
know me before I was born?"

Anne shook her head.

"Daddy, how did you know me before I was born?"

"Peggy, you're a little tease."

"You brough