On the whole he had enjoyed the afternoon immensely and found himself wondering why he had never done anything of the sort before. They were such jolly kids; the brown-faced, impulsive Cornelius James, aglow with imagination and as affectionate as a puppy; Jane, a feminine edition of him, with thick hair, "bobbed" above the nape of her white neck (he had discovered for the first time the witchery that lies in the back of a child's neck); and Georgina, shy, long slip of a thing with eyes like a fawn and hints of a not-distant womanhood in her quick changes of colour and the pretty immature curves of her young body. Of Miss Mayne he thought with a queer mixture of compunction and pleasure. She so obviously would have enjoyed the afternoon had it not been for the lamentable business of the ring, and the ridiculous remark addressed to her by Josephine Smedley. Her husband indeed...! Somehow that possible interpretation never entered his head when he suggested temporarily adopting the children. The ring she was still wearing during tea must have been responsible for it. He wished they had got it off with soap and water when she wanted to, instead of leaving it till afterwards. "Comic!" The intonation in Miss Mayne's voice came back to him as she echoed the word. After all, why comic----? He wondered, sailor-like, what manner of man her brother had been, that dead Guardsman who slept "in Flanders' fields." He realised with an unfamiliar thrill the fearless, frank way she had looked him in the eyes, the poise of her head, the gay quality of her laugh, and somehow wished he had had that man for a pal; he, who since boyhood had never really opened his heart to another human being. He found a letter from his step-sister awaiting him on his return. It was a hurried epistle communicating the fact that Sir Malcolm was in bed with influenza, which at that time was raging in London. It postponed their return indefinitely and bade Graeme make himself as comfortable as circumstances permitted in their absence until the end of his leave. Perhaps nothing more was necessary than this absence of Lady Manners from the scene to mature Graeme's friendship with his new acquaintances. From the formal invitation to a return party at Glebe Farm penned by Georgina and signed by all three children, they passed by rapid stages to an easy comradeship. In a week the boy and both girls were as free of the demesne as Graeme was of the noisy teas in the farm parlour. Further, the latter unearthed a governess cart out of the stables, and harnessing a fat pony between the shafts, led them off on long rambling expeditions amongst the thickly-wooded hills, and lanes drowsy with the scent of honeysuckle. It is not for me to attempt any convincing record of the imperceptible stages by which, as the days passed, Graeme fell in love with Claire Mayne.