'I would have come a longer distance for the sake of such a pleasant
meeting,' he answered, smiling at her.

'Bessie,' cried Blanche, who had been grovelling on her knees before the
gipsy fire, 'the kettle will go off the boil if you don't make tea
instantly. If it were not your birthday I should make it myself.'

'You may,' said Bessie, 'although it is my birthday.'

She had walked a little way apart with Urania, and they two were talking
somewhat earnestly.

'Those girls seem to be plotting something,' said Reginald; 'a charade
for to-night, perhaps. It's sure to be stupid if Urania's in it.'

'You mean that it will be too clever,' said Horatio.

'Yes, that kind of cleverness which is the essence of stupidity.'

While Bessie and Miss Rylance conversed apart, and all the younger
Wendovers devoted their energies to the preparation of a tremendous meal,
Ida and Brian Wendover stood face to face upon the breezy hill-top, the
girl sorely embarrassed, the young man gazing at her as if he had never
seen anything so lovely in his life.

'I have heard so much about you from Bessie,' he said after a silence
which seemed long to both. 'Her letters for the last twelve months have
been a perpetual paean--like one of the Homeric hymns, with you for the
heroine. I had quite a dread of meeting you, feeling that, after having