She caught my eye and her cheeks reddened under their tan, and she said simply: "I must tell you, my friend, that when my father leaves the Thames this summer he will take me away to a place near the Roman wall in Cumberland; so that this voyage of mine is farewell to the south; of course with my goodwill in a way; and yet I am sorry for it.

I hadn't the heart to tell Dick yesterday that we were as good as gone from the Thames-side; but somehow to you I must needs tell it." She stopped and seemed very thoughtful for awhile, and then said smiling: "I must say that I don't like moving about from one home to another; one gets so pleasantly used to all the detail of the life about one; it fits so harmoniously and happily into one's own life, that beginning again, even in a small way, is a kind of pain.

But I daresay in the country which you come from, you would think this petty and unadventurous, and would think the worse of me for it." She smiled at me caressingly as she spoke, and I made haste to answer: "O, no, indeed; again you echo my very thoughts.

But I hardly expected to hear you speak so.

I gathered from all I have heard that there was a great deal of changing of abode amongst you in this country." "Well," she said, "of course people are free to move about; but except for pleasure-parties, especially in harvest and hay-time, like this of ours, I don't think they do so much.