Thus Mrs. Layton talked on, and then, after having taken two glasses of port wine, she finally withdrew, "to see after my poor dear," she said, alluding to her daughter. After she was gone John asked leave to go out on the terrace to smoke, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he found himself alone. The terrace ran round one side of the house, and below it were the gardens. The haze of evening was lying over the glowing flower-beds, and the dew upon the grass. It was all so still; the drone of a late reveler returning from the flowers, the rustle of a bird's wing among the trees, were the only sounds. Up and down walked John, thinking of many things. "If this had only happened ten years ago," he was reflecting; "happened when I was young." He did not look very old in the soft light, with the evening breeze stirring the thick brown hair above his brow, for his head was uncovered. A man in his prime; a handsome man, and one well-fitted to please a woman's eyes. Perhaps he knew this, and somehow his mind wandered to the fair-faced girl he had seen and admired in the country lane. "So she is a little flirt, is she?" he thought, with a smile. "The pretty Mayflower." The name pleased him almost as much as the girl's beauty had done. She reminded him of the roses he had seen her gather from the hedge. She was so fresh and sweet, he thought, and it amused him to hear of her lovers. "Of course she has lovers--what girl worth looking at has not?--but I wonder if she has ever loved," he reflected. By and by he began thinking of another woman, and as he did so he frowned. He began to whistle to distract his thoughts, and then suddenly remembered how lately this had been the house of death. He felt sorry for the poor mother, with her fresh grief, upstairs; sorry for the gray-haired old man. "I suppose I should go in and talk to him," he said, and he did. He found the squire alone. The vicar had gone home with his wife, and there was no one in the dining-room but the desolate old man. John tried to talk to him, but he found it very difficult. When two lives have run in completely different grooves, the conversation is apt to be strained. The squire had always lived in the country, John Temple always in towns. They spoke a little on politics, and John easily perceived his uncle's opinions were opposed to his own. But he did not intrude this on his attention, and it was a subject at least to converse on. They parted on friendly terms for the night, and the next morning the squire called his nephew into the library, and spoke to him seriously of his change of position. "It is only right that you should have an allowance out of the estates now, John," he said, "when you will probably so soon inherit them." "Please do not speak of such a thing," answered John, with an earnest ring in his voice which pleased the squire.