When he woke, the sun was high; and when he reached the house, he found his mother and Kate already seated at breakfast--Kate in the prettiest of cotton dresses, looking as fresh and country-like as the morning itself.

The window was open, and through the encircling ivy, as through a filter of shadows, the air came fresh and cool.
Beyond the shadow of the house lay the sunshine, a warm sea of brooding glory, of still power; not the power of flashing into storms of splendour beneath strange winds, but of waking up and cherishing to beauty the shy life that lay hidden in all remotest corners of the teeming earth.
"What are you going to do with Kate to-day, Alec ?" said his mother.
"Whatever Kate likes," answered Alec.
"I have no choice," returned Kate.

"I don't know yet what I have to choose between.

I am in your hands, Alec." It was the first time she had called him by his name, and a spear of sunshine seemed to quiver in his heart.

He was restless as a hyena till she was ready.