, reluctant, and wanting more of the
same sort.

It was then that Sally's stepfather said a rather singular thing to
her--a thing she remembered afterwards, though she noticed it but
slightly at the time. She had said to him:

"Codling and Short will be quite rich men! What a lot of money you've
given them, Jeremiah!"

And he had replied: "Don't they deserve it?"

They had then walked on together up the road, he taking her arm in his
hand, as is the way nowadays, but saying nothing. Presently he said,
as he threw away the very last end of the cigar:

"It was the first lesson of my early boyhood in retributive injustice.
It's a poor heart that never rejoices at Punch."

It was the first time Sally had ever heard him speak of his boyhood
except as a thing he had forgotten.

* * * * *

Much, so much, of this chapter is made up of matter so trifling. Was
it worth recording? The chronicler might plead again as excuse his
temptation to linger over the pleasant hours it tells of, the utter
freedom of its actors from care, and his reluctance to record their
sequel. But a better apology for his prolixity and detail would be
found in the wonder felt by those actors when in after-life they
looked back and recalled them one by one; and the way each memory
linked itself, in a way unsuspected at the time, with an absolutely
unanticipated future. For even Rosalind, with all her knowledge of the
past, had no guess, for all her many misgivings and apprehensions, of
the way that things would go. Never had she been freer from a sense
of the shadow of a coming cloud than when she looked out from the
window while the tea she had just made was mellowing, and saw her
husband and daughter coming through the little garden gate, linked
together and in the best of spirits.

CHAPTER XXXIV

OF THE REV. SAMUEL HERRICK AND A SUNSET. THE WEDGE'S PROGRESS. THE
BARON AGAIN, AND THE FLY-WHEEL. HOW FENWICK KNEW HIS NAME RIGHT, AND
ROSALIND DIDN'T. HOW SALLY AND HER MEDICAL ADVISER WERE NOT QUITE WET
THROUGH. HOW HE HAD MADE HER THE CONFIDANTE OF A LOVE-AFFAIR. OF A
GOOD OPENING IN SPECIALISM. MORE PROGRESS OF THE WEDGE. HOW GERRY
NEARLY MADE DINNER LATE

It was quite true, as Sally had surmised, that poor Prosy had been
entangled in the meshes of his Octopus. But Sally had also recorded
her conviction that he would turn up at tea. He did so, with
apologies. You see, he hadn't liked to come aw