o or three other people were walking about the Head. In talking, Mrs.
Ormonde became aware that someone had approached her; she turned her
head, and saw Annabel Newthorpe.

They shook hands quietly. Thyrza drew a little away.

'Are you alone?' Mrs. Ormonde asked.

'Yes, I have walked.'

'Who do you think this is?' Mrs. Ormonde murmured quickly. 'Mr. Grail's
future wife. She has just brought one of my children down; I am going
to keep her till Monday. Come and speak; the most loveable child!'

Thyrza and Annabel were presented to each other with the pleasant
informality which Mrs. Ormonde so naturally employed. Each was
impressed with the other's beauty; Thyrza felt not a little awe, and
Annabel could not gaze enough at the lovely face which made such a
surprise for her.

'Why did Mr. Egremont give me no suggestion of this?' she said to
herself.

She had noticed, in drawing near, how intimately her friend and the
stranger were talking together. Her arrival had disturbed Thyrza's
confidence; she herself did not feel able to talk quite freely. So in a
few minutes she turned and went by the footway along the edge of the
height. Just before descending into a hollow which would hide her, she
cast a look back, and saw that Thyrza's eyes were following her.

'But how could he speak of her and yet tell me nothing?'

His delicacy explained it, no doubt. He had not liked to say of the
simple girl whom Grail was to marry that she was very beautiful.
Annabel felt that most men would have been less scrupulous: it was
characteristic of Egremont to feel a subtle propriety of that kind.

Annabel was at all times disposed to interpret Egremont's motives in a
higher sense than would apply to the average man.

On her return, Thyrza had tea with Mrs. Mapper and the children, then
went with them to the large room upstairs in which evenings were spent
till the early bedtime. It was an ideal nursery, with abundant
picture-books, with toys, with everything that could please a child's
eye and engage a child's mind. There was a piano, and on this Mrs.
Mapper sometimes played the kind of music that children would like. She
taught them songs, moreover, and a singing evening was always much
looked forward to. Saturday was always such; when the little choir had
got a song perfect, Mrs. Ormonde was wont to come up and hear them sing
it, making them glad with her praise.

It happened that to-night there was to be practising of a new song;