Here we are." The small touring car stopped; the young men descended to a grassy terrace where a few people in white flannels had gathered after breakfast.

A slender woman, small of bone and built like an undeveloped girl, came forward, the sun shining on her thick chestnut hair.
"Hello, Lily," said Neville.
"Hello, Louis.

Thank you for coming, Mr.Querida--it is exceedingly nice of you to come--" She gave him her firm, cool hand, smiled on him with unfeigned approval, turned and presented him to the others--Miss Aulne, Miss Swift, Miss Annan, a Mr.Cameron, and, a moment later, to her husband, Gordon Collis, a good-looking, deeply sun-burned young man whose only passion, except his wife and baby, was Ashuelyn, the home of his father.
But it was a quiet passion which bored nobody, not even his wife.
When conversation became general, with Querida as the centre around which it eddied, Neville, who had seated himself on the gray stone parapet near his sister, said in a low voice: "Well, how goes it, Lily ?" "All right," she replied with boyish directness, but in the same low tone.

"Mother and father have spent a week with us.

You saw them in town ?" "Of course.