So the king enjoys his own again, and Roger is at home.

Not yet--and now it is the next morning--has his return become _real_ to me.

Still there is something phantom and visionary about it: still it seems to me open to question whether, if I look away from him for a moment, he may not melt and disappear into dream-land.
All through breakfast I am dodging and peeping from behind the urn to assure myself of the continued presence and substantial reality of the strong shoulders and bronze-colored face that so solidly and certainly face me.

As often as I catch his eye--and this is not seldom, for perhaps he too has his misgivings about me--I smile, in a manner, half ashamed, half sneaky, and yet most wholly satisfied.
The sun, who is not by any means _always_ so well-judging, often hiding his face with both hands from a wedding, and hotly and gaudily flaming down on a black funeral, is shining with a temperate February comeliness in at our windows, on our garden borders; trying (and failing) to warm up the passionless melancholy of the chilly snow-drop families, trying (and succeeding) to add his quota to the joy that already fills and occupies our two hearts.
"How fine it is!" I cry, flying with unmatronly agility to the window, and playing a waltz on the pane.

"That is right! I should have been so angry if it had rained; let us come out at once--I want to hear your opinion about the laurels; they want cutting badly, but I could not have them touched while you were away, though Bobby's fingers--when he was here--itched to be hacking at them.