ancy what an exciting life, Mr. Roche. Doesn't
it take your breath away?"

At the thought of her own humdrum existence Eleanor laughs again with a
return of that superabundant vitality which is hers by nature.

"Then once or perhaps twice a year I am invited to tea at the Vicarage,
and I sit up straight in a high-backed chair and say 'Yes' and 'No'
when I am spoken to, and answer prettily--like a schoolgirl. The
vicar's wife would have a fit if I lounged like this," flinging herself
back with an air of abandon on the hay. "Once she asked me to sing (I
play the harmonium in church). My cousin Joe had brought me a comic
song from town, and I couldn't help, for the life of me, getting up and
giving her a verse."

"Of course it was wrong, and she looked frightfully shocked. I have
certainly never been invited to tea since. Oh, how I should like to
sing at concerts and halls--I mean the sort of places where you have an
eyeglass, and walk round with a hat and stick!"

Her face beamed as she delivered this sentence--involuntarily the
little hands clasped themselves together in excitement.

"Be thankful that such an ambition is ungratified," declares Philip,
speaking seriously for the first time. "You do not know the fate that
you are coveting. Best contented, child, to remain your own sweet
self. Your country life is ideal compared with--_that_!"

Eleanor shakes her head.

"It doesn't seem like it," she declares.

"No, I dare say not. Duty is sometimes heroism in its noblest form."

"Then are all the people wicked that go to London, and sing, act, and
enjoy themselves?"

"Indeed I trust not. We should have a pretty bad time of it if they
were. Yet I don't know that you're far wrong. Few are guileless. But
why talk of it? Time enough to warn you of the pitfalls when you are
on your road to the great city."

"What is your life?" asks Eleanor curiously, drawing the long ends of
hay through her teeth with a meditative smile.

"Scarcely less monotonous than yours, Miss Grebby"--an amused look in
his eyes. "Instead of feeding chickens I feed my friends--lunches,
dinners, midnight suppers--all of which pall terribly after a time.
Instead of dusting my house I leave it to accumulate dust, while I
wander abroad. A home is a dull place for one man."

"You have no wife or mother?"

"No."

"But you must have lots of money. Why, only think of all the silver
you threw to the children this afternoon! I d