"Greeting, my Fair One! Greeting, my Celestial Peach Blossom!" boomed the
bass voice gently. "Where are the other noble dames?"

"Beryl's out playing bridge and mother's giving the boy his bath...Have you
come to borrow something?"

The Trouts were for ever running out of things and sending across to the
Burnells' at the last moment.

But Jonathan only answered, "A little love, a little kindness;" and he
walked by his sister-in-law's side.

Linda dropped into Beryl's hammock under the manuka-tree, and Jonathan
stretched himself on the grass beside her, pulled a long stalk and began
chewing it. They knew each other well. The voices of children cried from
the other gardens. A fisherman's light cart shook along the sandy road,
and from far away they heard a dog barking; it was muffled as though the
dog had its head in a sack. If you listened you could just hear the soft
swish of the sea at full tide sweeping the pebbles. The sun was sinking.

"And so you go back to the office on Monday, do you, Jonathan?" asked
Linda.

"On Monday the cage door opens and clangs to upon the victim for another
eleven months and a week," answered Jonathan.

Linda swung a little. "It must be awful," she said slowly.

"Would ye have me laugh, my fair sister? Would ye have me weep?"