I thought you also met afterwards." He had again to recall.

"So we did! Wouldn't it have been somewhere at Christmas?
But it wasn't by arrangement!" he laughed, giving with his forefinger a little pleasant nick to his hostess's chin.

Then as if something in the way she received this attention put him back to his question of a moment before: "Have you kept my note ?" She held him with her pretty eyes.

"Do you want it back ?" "Ah don't speak as if I did take things--!" She dropped her gaze to the fire.

"No, you don't; not even the hard things a really generous nature often would." She quitted, however, as if to forget that, the chimney-place.