ards further on, at a bend of the road, they
saw a little girl shading her eyes with her hand and gazing towards the
sun. She wore a short blue serge frock, and she had long restless legs,
and the word _Formidable_ was on her forehead, and her eyes were all
screwed up in the strong sunshine. And in her hand were flowers.

"There she is, after all!" said Edward, quickly.

Olive Two nodded. Olive Two also blushed, for Mimi was the first person
acquainted with her to see her after her marriage. She blushed because
she was now a married woman.

Mimi, who with much prudence had managed so that the meeting should not
occur exactly in front of the house, came towards the carriage. The pony
was walking up a slope. She bounded forward with her childish grace and
with the awkwardness of her long legs, and her hair loose in the breeze,
and she laughed nervously.

"Good morning, good morning," she cried. "Shall I jump on the step? Then
the horse won't have to stop."

And she jumped lightly on to the step and giggled, still nervously,
looking first at the bridegroom and then at the bride. The bridegroom
held her securely by the shoulder.

"Well, Mimi," said Olive Two, whose shyness vanished in an instant
before the shyness of the child. "This _is_ nice of you."

The two women kissed. But Mimi did not offer her cheek to the
bridegroom. He and she simply shook hands as well as they could with a
due regard for Mimi's firmness on the step.

"And who woke you up, eh?" Edward Coe demanded.

"Nobody," said Mimi; "I got up by myself, and," turning to Olive Two,
"I've made this bouquet for you, auntie. There aren't any flowers in the
fields. But I got the chrysanthemum out of the greenhouse, and put some
bits of ferns and things round it. You must excuse it being tied up with
darning wool."

She offered the bouquet diffidently, and Olive Two accepted it with a
warm smile.

"Well," said Mimi, "I don't think I'd better go any further, had I?"

There was another kiss and hand-shaking, and the next moment Mimi was
standing in the road and waving a little crumpled handkerchief to the
receding victoria, and the bride and bridegroom were cricking their
necks to respond. She waved until the carriage was out of sight, and
then she stood moveless, a blue and white spot on the green landscape,
with the morning sun and the sea behind her.

"Exactly like a little woman, isn't she?" said Edward Coe, enchanted by
the vision.

"Exactly!" O