afford new avenues for play. So the boys departed like deer among
the trunks of the trees.

It was a cosy conversation which the ladies enjoyed after this. Any
conversation would be cosy that had been reared in the glory of such
a garden, and in the comfort of those lazy chairs. Mrs. Pennybet
began by declaring, as these shameless ladies do, that her hostess's
fair-haired nephew was quite the most beautiful child she had ever
seen; she could hug him all day; nay, she could eat him. And,
thereupon Lady Gray told her the whole story of Edgar Gray Doe; how
his mother had been Sir Peter's sister, and the loveliest woman in
Western Cornwall; how she had paid with her life for Edgar's being;
and how her husband, the chief of lovers, had quickly followed his
young bride.

"They're an emotional lot, these Does," said Lady Gray. "As surely
as they come fair-haired, they are brilliantly romantic and blindly
adoring. And Edgar's every inch a Doe. Anybody can lead him into
mischief. And anybody who likes will do so."

"Oh, I suppose he's troublesome like all boys," suggested Mrs.
Pennybet, with a rapid mental survey of the existence of Archie. "He
will grow into a fine man some day."

"Perhaps," said Lady Gray, staring over the tranquil water of the
Fal, as though it represented the intervening years. "We shall see."

"And Archie," continued Mrs. Pennybet, "though he's a plague now,
will be a brilliant and dominating man, I think. He's not easily
mastered, and I don't believe adverse circumstances will ever beat