tion with the waiter. It was not a lengthened
epistle; it ran so:
"Tuesday.
"DEAR PERCY.--Let it be as you wish.
"Your loving
"KATE.
"P.S. When shall you be in town? Come and see me."
She folded and enclosed and addressed the letter; but she did not give
it to the waiter to post. It was of too great moment for that. She put
it in her pocket; she would herself see it safely despatched.
Well, for a boy, Jim had not done so badly; though, to be sure, his
sister did not seem to pay much attention to these delicacies. Her brain
was too busy. As she trifled with this thing or that, or sipped a little
wine, she said,
"Jim, I know what the dream of your life is--it's to go to a big
pheasant-shoot."
"Oh, is it?" he said, with the scorn born of superior knowledge. "Not
much. I've tried my hand at pheasants. I know what they are. It's all
very well for those fellows in the papers to talk about the easy
shooting--the slaughter--the tame birds--and all that bosh; fellows who
couldn't hit a stuffed cockatoo at twenty yards. No, thanks; I know what
pheasants are--the beasts!"
"Well, what kind of shooting would you really like?" said this indulgent
sister.
"I'll tell you," he said, with his face brightening. "I should like to
have the run of a good rabbit-warren, and to be allowed to wander about
entirely by myself, with a gun and a spaniel. No keeper looking on and
worrying and criticising--that's my idea."
"All right," said she, "I think I can promise you that."
"You?" he said, looking at her, and wondering if she had gone out of her
wits.
"Yes," she answered, sweetly. "Don't you think there will be plenty of
rabbits about a place like Petmansworth?"
"And what then?"
"Well, I'm going to marry Sir Percival Miles," said Miss Kate, with much
serene complacency.
CHAPTER XXVII
A REUNION.
Here is a long balcony, shaded by pillared arches, the windows hung with
loose blinds of reeds in gray and scarlet. If you adventure out into the
hot sunlight, you may look away down the steep and rugged hill, where
there are groups of flat-roofed, white houses dotted here and there
among the dark palms and olives and arbored vines; and then your eyes
naturally turn to the vast extent of shimmering blue sea, with the faint
outline of the Italian coast and the peaked Vesuvius beyond.
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