XL "HE IS MY RIVAL STILL"
XLI "YOU CAN BE DINAH'S FRIEND"
XLII THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME
XLIII A MAY AFTERNOON
XLIV "MY DEAREST REST"




HERB OF GRACE




CHAPTER I

INTRODUCES A LOVER OF THE PICTURESQUE


Our adventures hover round us like bees round the hive when
preparing to swarm.--MAETERLINCK.

From boyhood Malcolm Herrick had been a lover of the picturesque. In
secret he prided himself on possessing the artistic faculty, and
yet, except in the nursery, he had never drawn a line, or later on
spoilt canvas and daubed himself in oils under the idea that he was
an embryo Millais or Turner. But nevertheless he had the seeing eye,
and could find beauty where more prosaic people could only see
barrenness: a stubble field newly turned up by the plough moved him
to admiration, while a Surrey lane, with a gate swinging back on its