the garden--a garden with high red walls, and a dial in the
meeting-place of the flower-bordered paths; and we sat down in a rustic
seat cosily fitted into one sunny corner, just behind a great bed of
hyacinths in flower.

The children had but one regret: Tip had been left behind.

"But mamma would not let us bring him," cried Harold in an aggrieved
tone, "because he will roll in the flower-beds."

"Do you think it is nearly half-past four, Aunt Eleanour?" asked Denis.

"Very nearly, I should think. Suppose you were to go and see if they
have brought the tea-kettle in; and if they have, call to me from the
drawing-room window, and I will come."

The tempered sunlight fell full upon the delicate hyacinth
clusters--coral, snow-white, and faintest lilac--exhaling their
exquisite odour, and the warm sweet air seemed to enwrap us tenderly. My
spirits, heavy as lead, began to rise--strangely, irrationally. Sunlight
has always for me a supersensuous beauty, while the colour and perfume
of flowers move me as sound vibrations move the musician. Just then it
was to me as if through Nature, from that which is behind Nature, there
reached me a pitying, a comforting caress.

And in the same key were Mrs. Mostyn's words when she next spoke.

"Mr. Lyndsay, I am an old woman and you are very young, and my heart
goes out to all young creatures in sorrow, especially to one who has no
mother of his own, no, nor father even, to comfort him. I know what