Wyndham had finished Lady Betty's portrait on the previous morning, and had taken it back with him to his studio. To-day the frame, a copy of a fine old Venetian model, came early in the morning, and Wyndham had soon fixed the canvas within it. He was enchanted with the effect. If the Salon had only a corner to spare for it, he was certain they would not turn it away. And—entrancing idea!—why should not Lady Betty deign to come here on this last day, and snatch a glimpse of herself in this charming setting which he had selected with such loving interest. There was a long day before them, and he might well seize the mood and the auspicious moment.

He lingered before his picture, then brusquely tore himself away from it, and sat down and wrote instructions to the frame-maker, who was to come and fetch it away on the morrow, and despatch it to Paris immediately.

For this was his great day; that was to leave with him for ever the memory of gracious companionship and irrevocable farewell! The day on which he would live for Lady Betty and forget all else! Then she would pass out of his life. He strove to face the stern decree. But only a blank met his vision. He turned his eyes away; his thoughts should be of the day only.

He had hardly considered what their programme should be. But now, on his way, he began to ponder it lazily, dwelling fancifully on possibilities rather than arriving at anything rigid or definite. They would roam about at random, like two sweethearts of the people; their evening they would spend at a theatre, no doubt something out of the way, and they would find their meals as the bizarre occasion might offer itself. They would invest this everyday London with the romantic light of their own spirit; they would wander as through a strange capital, and observe humanity with a new eye. And then, of course, he must keep before him the possibility of the visit to his own studio, in which Lady Betty had never as yet set foot.

At midday he rang the bell at Grosvenor Place, and was shown up into the great drawing-room. In a minute or two Lady Betty came tripping in. A glance showed she was ready to go out at once; her simple coat and skirt formed a costume unobtrusive enough for any expedition, and her hat and veil matched the occasion to a nicety.

She was radiant with an unaffected gaiety; he could hardly conceive the weight of sadness that must lie at the bottom of her heart.

"We shall have a happy day," she said, smiling at the thought of it; "something to remember always."

He was quick to grasp her spirit. They were to have this happiness as if the day were one of many days, some past, more to come. They were to give themselves up to the joy of each other's companionship in simple acceptance of the passing hour; not dilating on the occasion as a parting; not letting it be overshadowed by the sense of what they had so tragically missed in life. Parting there would be; and then sadness would descend swiftly enough. Till that bitter moment—sparkle and enjoyment! He had come prepared to talk much of themselves; but he saw she was wiser than he, and at once fell in with her mood. There would be all the rest of his life to lament in.

"Have you thought of any plan?" he asked.

"None," she replied. "To tell the truth, I rather shrank from anything definite. 'The wind bloweth as it listeth.' Let us go on without end or purpose. That seems to me the ideal way."

"But we are bound to make a beginning. After that the game may play itself." "Let us get away from the London we know; let us go to a romantic, wonderful London that we have never seen." She was almost echoing his thought. "We shall glide discreetly among the crowds as if we belonged to them."

"Then away!" he laughed. "To horse—or rather, to omnibus! Or is it to be hansom?"

"Everything in turn, and nothing long."

It was a cold day, yet though the sky was lightly clouded, the air was free from mist. As they stepped into the street a few patches of blue were visible, and a wintry sunshine filtered down with a pleasant sense of promise. The neighbouring houses were for the most part shuttered and silent, but the outlook on the great triangular space before them was cheerfully busy.

"How unlike the scene of your painting!" she exclaimed. "There is no suggestion of drama here, but just the average feeling of the London thoroughfare—busy people going their way, and a procession of omnibuses mixed up with carts and hansoms."

"Yet my own scene swims before my eyes—I have lived with it so long."

"You have still to live with it," she reminded him.

"If I do not die of it," he answered pleasantly. "Seriously, I came near to doing so."

"This omnibus is marked 'Aldgate,'" she flew off. "Now that makes me think of Aldgate Pump. I wonder if it goes near the Pump?"

Wyndham jumped on the foot-board, and put the question to the conductor.

"We pass within a yard of it," was the reply.

"Good," said Wyndham. The omnibus drew up, and Lady Betty mounted the stairway, and they seated themselves on the roof.

"Look!" he exclaimed. "The clouds are suddenly breaking; it will be all blue and sunshine soon."

"A grey ghostly blue, a cold, charming sunshine."

"Yet the promise is splendid after all this winter."

"The promise is splendid," she echoed; "and we are so happy to-day."

"We are so happy," he repeated.

He let himself lapse into a dreamy mood; he was enchanted to have her so near him, to feel the afternoon and evening stretching endlessly before them—a veritable lifetime of golden moments. Lady Betty's manner offered a marked contrast. Hers was a frank exhilaration, an excited gaiety, of which he had the full impression; though she kept it in a low key, like love's whisper intended for his ear alone. Soon, as he had predicted, the sky grew bluer, the sunshine warmer; the traffic and the bustle of the streets were cheerfully pleasant to the eye and the ear in the fresh day. "Even the London we know seems delightful," he remarked.

"London, though sometimes impelling to revolt, is always wonderful—it has always the fascination of the unknown."

"And is as supremely problematic as the unknowable of the philosophers."

"But it is solid and real, comes to us through all the five senses. Look at that strange old man with the tiger-lilies. I wonder how he comes by them at this time of year."

"That is one of the wonders of London," said Wyndham. "One sees the flowers of all seasons at every season."

"And sometimes the weather of all seasons at every season. Has Aldgate Pump a history?"

He confessed to ignorance, though he had an idea that he had read much about it in his boyhood, an epoch when he had been fascinated by all the odd monuments of the town. He recalled, however, after a time, that there was a legend connected with it, not unlike that of the wandering Jew.

"Is it actually a pump?" she asked.

"Oh, it's a real pump," he assured her.

"Because I had a suspicion just now; it struck me it might be a sort of old coaching-inn or something of the kind. I've often been deceived like that, have gone off to see strange things, and have found a coaching-inn." "At least there is the consolation of refreshment at the inn."

"Not a bad idea," she conceded. "It would be a thing to boast about for the rest of one's life—to have refreshed one's self at the Aldgate Pump."

Both laughed. The omnibus pursued its way with a steady rumble. They had turned out of Piccadilly and passed through Waterloo Place, and soon after through Trafalgar Square into the Strand, where the scene proved much busier. The pavements were thronged; people were pressing forward with an appearance of being very much in earnest. A sprinkling of tourists, clearly self-proclaimed by their holiday air and the style of their attire and grooming, paraded at leisure or gazed into the shop-windows. Here and there a young girl, in a picture frock and a big hat, tripped along daintily, holding her skirt with a touch that suggested Paris, and swinging her little bag from her free hand.

"Actresses going to rehearsal?" hazarded Wyndham, in response to his companion's interrogation.

"How charming they are!" she exclaimed. "And they are most of them frightfully poor. They struggle for years, and then drop out gradually. Fortunately we women have the gift of living intensely for the day. A few weeks' engagement, the guinea or two assured for the time being, and see how we bloom." "Ah, yes," said Wyndham reflectively; "life for them, as for many others, is pretty much of a game of roulette. They stake their all on the table, fortune fluctuates during a few turns of the wheel, and then—everything is swept away."

"Away, please, with these sad reflections! Why look too searchingly at things? The world is pleasant; why spoil it by examining it? Why turn one's eyes willingly away from the good to see the evil?"

"And at any rate the good is as real as the evil," he agreed.

"We must make things contribute to our happiness while we may. All these crowds of people have no idea that they are there for our entertainment; they do not know, poor things, that we have willed they should be masquerading to please us. They have the delusion they are going about their own affairs, and they see only an ordinary omnibus, full on the roof—that is, if they cared to look at us. To them what more commonplace than a journey on an omnibus from Hyde Park Corner to Aldgate Pump? Yet, to us, what a whimsical universe it is!"

The omnibus rattled along with a not unpleasing vibration. They passed through the heart of the City, swept alongside St. Paul's, and then the humour of country cousins took possession of them. They pretended to be roused to excitement by all these guide-book regions and monuments, affected to be seeing them for the first time and to be recognising them from the engravings. Down Leadenhall Street they clattered at last, and presently to their surprise the conductor's head appeared above the stairway with the announcement of "Aldgate Pump, sir."

They descended. The omnibus passed on, and they stood hesitating, a little lost, but greatly amused.

"Here it is!" she exclaimed. "And a street arab in the very act of pumping! Why, it's real water."

They contemplated it for a moment or two. "Well, what do you think of it?" he asked.

"Thrilling," she admitted. "All pumps are interesting—in these days of universal taps. But look at those warehouses opposite, beyond the hoarding. Aren't they fascinating?"

"I believe the river lies beyond." Probably no existence had been less intertwined with the City of London than his, but he remembered the immediate neighbourhood pretty well from ancient wanderings, and he told her as an interesting fact that Mark Lane and Mincing Lane lay thereabouts.

"I think I have heard of them." Her face lighted with the pleasure of recognition. "Indeed, I'm sure I've seen them mentioned in the newspapers." He tried to plumb her knowledge, but found no deeps. She knitted her brows prettily, or at least he imagined she did, under her veil. "A sort of Latin Quarter—an artist's colony?" she hazarded. "No, wait a bit, there was a wealthy, humdrum sort of man I once met, and everybody whispered he came out of Mincing Lane. He was not artistic. I give it up."

"He imported tea?"

"That's not unlikely," she agreed.

"That's what Mincing Lane is for. And Mark Lane is for corn and produce."

"How useful! What a good world it is! I think I like this part."

"Beyond is Eastcheap, famous for groceries, and beyond that again the water-side where all these things are landed."

"Let us come to Eastcheap." She was eager to see all the places he had enumerated, so he took her through the famous side-streets.

"I certainly do like this part of the world," she repeated emphatically. "And do you know, your talk of tea, and corn, and produce, and warehouses has made me very hungry. If we stumble up against a charming place, we shall lunch."

And, a minute or two later, as they strolled down Eastcheap, at the corner of a narrow winding lane, they came upon a sort of cafÉ, which nice-looking merchants were entering, besides a goodly sprinkling of brisk young women. Lady Betty peered in through the door. The place seemed pretty full, but a stairway led to regions below. In a box, at the head of the stairway, and busily taking the cash, was a charming old man of mildest aspect.

Lady Betty declared it all fascinating, especially the part below stairs, which had the attraction of the as yet unseen.

Wyndham hesitated. "There is smoking below. You may not like it."

"There are other women going down," she insisted. "I can't resist the temptation."

It was an average type of City lunching place, but Lady Betty had never before tried the sort of thing, so Wyndham fell in with her whim. Down the stairs they went into a spacious cellar, lighted with jets of gas, though the sun was still shining outside. Wreaths and clouds of smoke floated in the atmosphere, and a clatter of dominoes and crockery dominated the buzz of voices that rose from the chaos of people at the marble tables. The central tables seemed given up to chess-play, each game surrounded by onlookers, all with patient cups of coffee beside them. And here and there an exceptional table, laid with a napkin, and in possession of vigorous eaters, gave the note of the restaurant. Wyndham and Lady Betty found a snug place on one side from which they could survey the room; and a neat little waitress, scarcely more than a child, came briskly forward to serve them, handing them with a sweet professional smile a long slip headed "Bill of Fare." They were glad to note that their entrance had attracted no attention. Lady Betty studied the bill excitedly. They made their decision, and Wyndham imparted it to the waitress.

"Thank you, sir," she said; "And what'll you have to drink, please?"

Again an eager colloquy, with the prosaic result of "two ginger-beers." "A true old English beverage," declared Lady Betty, and her approval seemed to flash the Æsthetic quality into it, to invest it with rank and nobility. "Small or large?" persisted the waitress, her tone and demeanour of the gravest.

"Oh, large," said Lady Betty, and the girl's face brightened at the definiteness of the information.

"Two large ginger-beers—thank you, ma'am," she said, and went off sharply, leaving them to their amusement.

Whilst waiting, they surveyed the place at their leisure. "I like it here," exclaimed Lady Betty again. "Look at the old chess player there, with the bald pate and the eagle's nose. Watch him considering his move, with his hand hovering in the air, hesitating, yet ready to swoop down to capture a piece."

But the hand did not capture the piece. Instead, the shoulders shrugged, an expression of disgust overclouded the face, and the hand descended, dashing all the pieces from the board with one sweep. A roar of delight broke from the onlookers, and mingling with it from another part of the room came a sudden fresh clatter of dominoes, rapidly shuffled.

"What fresh, frank enjoyment! So this is the strenuous commercial life of London—gingerbeer and dominoes!"

"A strange set of people!" commented Wyndham. "Study these faces—from each shines a different life. I almost want to put my enormous accumulation of art theories on the fire, and to paint only human faces for the rest of my life."

"Wonderful! There seem at least fifty different races here—to judge from the shapes of the skulls and the varying types of features."

"The thought often strikes me as I watch people in the streets or in omnibuses," said Wyndham. "No matter how dull or repulsive a human face at first sight, I believe it can always be painted so as to be interesting, and that without departing from truth."

The waitress reappeared with their lunch which had been simply chosen so as to admit of no possible failure, and in their present mood they were charmed with it. Lady Betty was enraptured by the experience, and chatted in an undertone, every now and then breaking into a spontaneous "I am so happy to-day," and flashing him a glance of light and radiance.

They wound up with black coffee, and then the little waitress made out the account, which, after leaving her demurely astonished with her big silver tip, Wyndham paid to the nice old man in the box at the top of the stairs.

"The sun is still shining—look!" she exclaimed.

Wyndham stepped after her into the air gratefully. "It is fresh and almost summery. Heaven smiles at us. Shall we stroll down this winding lane? I fancy it must lead to the water-side."

"Hurrah for the winding lane!" she said, and stepped out merrily. At the bottom they entered a street full of black brick warehouses with cranes at work, and huge carts with ponderous horses. "An antediluvian breed!" whispered Lady Betty. They strolled along, peering into dim doorways at vast interiors where a strange universe of life flourished in the glooms amid prodigious collections of barrels and boxes.

"We are almost on Tower Hill," he said suddenly.

"An unexpected fantasy!" she exclaimed, as the Tower of London itself came into view at the end of the narrow street, the grey far-stretching ramparts looming up ghost-like and romantic. "A mediÆval mirage amid all this grimy commerce. I wonder if it will vanish presently! But let us try the opposite direction now—are we not vowed to-day to the unfamiliar and unknown?"

They retraced their steps, and, ere long, lighted on an iron gate that led visibly to the water-side.

"The gate is inviting," she said. "I hope it isn't forbidden."

"Ah, here is a notice. I see we shall not be trespassers."

They entered, and, passing through the preliminary alley, found themselves on a broad, open gravelled space beyond which flowed the water. Save for a couple of pigeons wandering about, they had the place all to themselves.

"This is a discovery," declared Lady Betty. "It is as interesting here in its way as the Rialto at Venice."

And indeed they had reason to admire. To the right lay the Bridge of Bridges, whose endlessly rolling traffic was at this distance softened to an artistic suggestion that by no means disturbed their sense of solitude. At the adjoining wharf on the left a Dutch boat was being unladen, actively, yet with a strange sense of stillness and calm. And over all the river and shipping hung a faint grey-blue mist, muffling and enveloping all things out of proportion to its density, and absorbing the sunlight into a haze that already seemed to foretell the chills of the coming twilight of the winter's day. They saw the sun, a large red ball, hanging extraordinarily low in the sky over a long squat warehouse with symmetrical rows of windows. And across the river, under the shadow of the opposite structures, lay strange families of craft and barges, moored in the water, or high on the mud; rusty and silent, some half-broken up, some swinging lazily, touched with the mellow decay of the centuries.

Lady Betty thought it would be ideal to stay here awhile, so they settled down on one of the garden-seats, and sat in quiet happiness, unheeding of the sharp touch of the afternoon air. More pigeons flew down from neighbouring roofs and walked tamely around them. And from all the mighty activity of surrounding London, that beat strenuous, feverish, far-reaching, there flowed to them only a serenity, an almost phantasmal calm: they were alone, supremely alone—far from their world of everyday existence.

The time slipped by deliciously. Their enjoyment was as spontaneous as of two children at play. And children they were in the perfect simplicity of their happiness. They watched the afternoon deepen, the haze of sunshine weaken and yield to greyer moods; they rose, too, and moved along the edge of the waters, and examined the shipping and barges. They spoke to the pigeons, gave them names, endowed them with romances; they spoke to each other endearingly, yet still as the two children who had played together always, who had wandered into this strange world, and were as enchanted with it as with each other.

At last they realised the light was already fading; the mist on all things was ghostlier, and damp in the throat and nostrils. Now and again a spasmodic wind caught up dry leaves and swirled them around playfully. Lady Betty gave a little shiver.

"Night will soon be on us," she said. "A million points of light will be springing up as by magic. It would be enchanting to stay and watch the darkness deepen and the river-fog steal down; to sit here through the mysterious hours, and study the shadows and silhouettes, and listen to all the strange sounds of the night, and watch all those lights glimmer on and on, till at last they show yellow in the pale dawn, and life again is swarming over the bridges. Must we go back, dear?—we have left our world ever so far away—and years ago, was it not, dear?"

A sadness had descended on them both. With the approach of evening, they could not but feel the precious time was fleeting; they could no longer immerse themselves with such wholeheartedness in the simple appreciation of the moment. The terror of the parting to come rose in the hearts of both. Yet they made a brave resistance.

"Come, darling," she said at last; "the hours still belong to us. We have indulged our day-mood. Let us search for something fresh now; our good star shall watch over us and send us happy adventures."

So they passed again into the street, and, absorbed in their talk, were scarcely aware whither they were turning. They knew they were in a network of by-ways, flanked by warehouses and offices, and sometimes they stumbled on terraces of decrepit old dwelling-houses. They were vaguely conscious that they were leaving the river far behind, and that they must have crossed Eastcheap again at some narrower part without recognising it. After some leisurely wandering they came into a more important thoroughfare with pretentious edifices, yet with archaic touches here and there, the relics of another epoch, worn and decaying, yet more suggestive of coming stone buildings to supplant them than of the glory of their own century.

At a street-corner, under the light of a lamp that was still pale in the gathering dusk, a shivering flower-seller with a red shawl over her shoulders stood with a basket of deliciously fresh violets, and Wyndham stopped to get a big bunch of them put together for his companion. Lady Betty was immensely gratified; she breathed in the odour of the violets with rapture, then fastened them in her bosom. She was herself again now, overflowing with good fellowship, and amused at every trifle. He caught her exhilaration. "We shall fill our evening with a whirl of gaiety!" he cried. "Rockets and fireworks; I wonder if the good star you spoke of will be kind enough to set down in our path some unheard-of theatre."

She suggested they should study the hoardings as they went along, and both undertook to keep a look-out. But they were absorbed again in each other, having only a vague pleasurable sense of the crowded roads into which their steps now took them. Eventually they were in a main thoroughfare, with bustling shops brilliantly alight, and endless lines of stalls a-blazing; the roadway full of traffic and tram-cars and amazingly gigantic hay-carts, the pavements thick with a working population pressing forward and forward in multitudes. It was night now, absolutely; but it had stolen on them so gradually, they were astonished it was so definitely manifest. The hours of light were fresh and vivid in their minds, they could almost hear and feel the unending clatter of the omnibus that had carried them across the town, and the riverside picture was still before them. The change that had come over the world, this transition to absolute darkness illumined by street-lamps and flaring naphtha, seemed mystic and amazing. And a subtle warmth from all this illumination and from all this press and bustle, from all these close-packed moving vans and cars and hay-carts, pervaded the wintry air; a sense of exhilaration, too; a sense of life in all its unrefined, joyous reality, intense and vigorous, accepting itself unquestioningly, too sure of the worth of the gift ever to doubt it—even as the hungry ploughboy does not speculate metaphysically about the fat pork on his plate, but simply falls thereon and devours it.

"Book-stalls!" cried Lady Betty, "and piled up ever and ever so high. And look, rusty Wellington boots on the one hand, and rusty tools and bits of iron on the other."

They stayed a few minutes, and turned over some of the books, as interesting and varied as those in any more pretentious bookman's paradise. They both grew selfishly absorbed, each striking out an individual path, though remembering the other's existence at moments of extraordinary interest. In the end each became the possessor of a volume. Wyndham's was a facsimile of the first edition of the "Pilgrim's Progress," a fattish octavo with the loveliest of wide margins, and the exact reproduction of the original engravings. Lady Betty's treasure was an old copy of the Dramatic Poems of Browning. Each paid the same one-and-sixpence, and as they bore away their prizes they discovered that each had been inspired by the same motive—of giving the other a memento of this wonderful day. Laughingly they exchanged their volumes, and the presentations thus formally carried out, Wyndham took possession of the Bunyan again in the mere capacity of carrier.

At last a hoarding with a great glare of light on it.

Wyndham let his eye roam over the posters. "The very thing," he cried. "A fine old-fashioned melodrama!"

"Splendid!" echoed Lady Betty, gazing at the many-coloured scenes that promised a generous measure of thrills and emotions.

"We shall have a box to ourselves," said Wyndham. "As you see, it is not so very extravagant. Only there is the problem of dining."

"What healthy little children we are!" she laughed.

"Oh, we must dine," he protested.

"I have faith," she declared. "Our good star has served us till now, it is not going to desert us. We shall light upon some quaint place presently."

The confident prediction justified itself, for, later on, they stopped before a Jewish restaurant that proudly announced itself as "kosher." And it proved immediately irresistible to the wanderers, who entered straightway, and found themselves in a simple sort of room with freshly papered walls, full of neatly laid tables, the very antithesis of the familiar formal restaurant of ornate intention. The place was empty of diners as yet—no doubt it was early for the usual clients; but the proprietor, a grave bearded personage in spotless broad-cloth and with the air of an ambassador, come forward bowing profoundly, and escorted them to a choice corner. Through a half-open door at the back they had a glimpse of a neat, comely Jewish woman busy amid pots and pans, whilst a boy and a girl, who both looked good and intelligent, were industriously doing their lessons at a side-table. The host waited on the adventurers in person, taking the dishes from a younger and shyer assistant who brought them from behind the scenes.

Despite the magnificent gravity of his presence, their host turned out to be an unaffected human being, whom they encouraged to talk of his own affairs, and who was pleased at their manifest interest in his homely establishment and in his little family. His wife and he worked together, and it was her cooking on which they were now being regaled. Their favourable verdict gave him an almost naÏve gratification; a radiance and an illumination broke brilliantly across his features. He told them the Jewish names of the various dishes, but though they repeated them sedulously, the strange, charming words would not remain in their heads a moment. Meanwhile the kitchen was being stimulated to a display of delicate skill and finesse; the fish was as good, declared Lady Betty, as anything she had tasted at the Maison d'Or. A few other clients began to appear—a long-bearded Russian, carefully dressed, accompanied by a simple, buxom daughter of rosy complexion and deep, serious, aspiring eyes; then a middle-aged man, with a leonine mane that was dashed with grey and suggested the poor composer of genius; and finally a spectacled German in a threadbare cut-away coat, carefully brushed, who suggested unrequited scholarship. But all these, after the first distinguished bow and salutation on the part of the host, were left to the attentions of the assistant; the host himself being magnetised by the unaccustomed guests with whom he was deep in conversation. But, though he waited on them perfectly, there was yet conveyed in his bearing such a touch of distinction and courteous affability that they were sensible as of an honour that was being bestowed upon them. And that he was no mere small-souled tradesman was abundantly evident when he brought them a bottle of claret with the romantic recommendation that it had been grown on Palestine soil, and that, in its passage from the wine-press to their table here, it had never left the hands of his compatriots. He handled the bottle with pride and certainly emotion, and begged them to accept of it, and to allow him to fill their glasses. They were touched by the invitation, though they were naturally unwilling to accept such a gift from a poor man, but he understood their doubts and laughingly explained that, as he did not possess a wine licence, he could not possibly accept payment; a piece of reasoning which drew them into the laugh and disposed of their hesitations.

They made him join them, however, and they drank to the prosperity of the Palestine colonies, irrelevantly but charmingly coupling the toast with that of their host and hostess, the children and the restaurant. The other visitors smiled quietly, and, with conspicuous good breeding, scarcely turned their eyes towards this convivial table, the Russian conversing in an undertone with his daughter, and the musician with the scholar.

And at the end the host did not give himself any false airs, but made out their modest reckoning and handed Wyndham the change, all with the same courtesy and with a distinction of manner which seemed to lift trade to a higher plane than it occupies in Occidental prejudice. And as the wife appeared hovering with a shy smile in the kitchen doorway, she was invited to join the group, and warmly complimented on her culinary skill. Then Lady Betty asked for the children, and presently their bright faces were illumining the room with a warmer and sweeter light. Wyndham and Lady Betty spoke to them a little, then Lady Betty slipped a fragile ring with a single small fine pearl off her finger, and put it on the girl's. The little thing blushed and hung down her head. But the jewel became the tiny hand immensely. Meanwhile the boy's eyes were glued on the books.

"I can see you like books, little man," said Wyndham.

"Yes, sir," said the child, "better than anything else."

"His ambition is to become a scholar," put in his father proudly.

"He is to have the Browning as a memento," said Lady Betty. She handed it to the child. "Keep this volume carefully. When you are older, I am sure you will love and treasure it." Then she unfastened her big bunch of violets and pressed the flowers on his mother, who took them shyly but coloured with pleasure.

When they were in the street again they walked on silently for a while. Wyndham saw that Lady Betty had been deeply touched; that something wonderful had been revealed to her of which, perhaps, she had never caught a glimpse in her whole existence. Presently she turned to Wyndham with a quiet smile that was the natural reflection of her thought.

"You do forgive me, dear," she asked, "for my arbitrary disposal of your Browning, my own present to you!"

"You sacrificed my gift of violets, so we are quits."

"After this we shall scarcely need any memento of the day—who could ever forget?" Then with a little thrill of joy: "But I've my Pilgrim all the same." She touched the book lovingly as he held it, and he was aware of her movement as of a caress. It was his gift to her, and what a world of affection in this implication of the value she set on it!

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