Captain Bohun was the first to break the silence. _She_ had been content to live in it by his side for ever: it was more eloquent, too, than his words were. "What a lovely day it is, Ellen!" "Yes. I think summer has come: we shall scarcely have it warmer than this in July. And oh, how charming everything is!" "Yes. Yesterday I had a ride of ten miles between green hedges in which the May is beginning to blossom. Envious darkness had shut out the world before I reached home again." "And I sat out here all the afternoon," she answered--and perhaps she unconsciously spoke in pursuance of the thought, that she had sat out waiting and hoping for him. "Where did you go, Arthur?" "To Bretchley. Some of my old brother officers are quartered there: and I spent the day with them. What's that for?" He alluded to the piece of work. She smiled as she held it out in her right hand, on the third finger of which was a plain gold ring. A small piece of white canvas with a pink rose and part of a green leaf already worked upon it in bright floss silk. "Guess." "Nay, how can I? For a doll's cushion?" "Oh, Arthur!" came the laughing exclamation. "If I tell you, you must keep counsel, mind that, for it is a secret, and I am working it under difficulties, out of Mrs. Cumberland's sight. Don't you think I have done a great deal? I only began it yesterday." "Well, what's it for?" he asked, putting his hand underneath it as an excuse, perhaps, for touching the fingers that held it. "A fire-screen for pretty faces?" The young lady shook her head. "It's for a kettle-holder." "A kettle-holder! What a prosy ending!" "It is for Mrs. Cumberland's invalid kettle that she keeps in her bedroom. The handle got hot a day or two ago, and she burnt her hand. I shall put it on some morning to surprise her." A silence ensued. Half their intercourse was made up of pauses: the eloquent language of true love. Captain Bohun, thinking how sweet-natured was the girl by his side, played abstractedly with the blossoms lying on the table. "What have you been doing with all these violets, Ellen?" "Nothing," she replied; and down went the scissors. But that she stooped at once, Captain Bohun might have seen the sudden flush on the delicate face, and wondered at it: a flush of remembrance. _Il m'aime passionnément_. Well, so he did. "Please don't entangle my silk, Captain Bohun." He laughed as he put down the bright gold skein. "Shall I help you to wind it, Ellen?" "Thank you, but we don't wind floss silk. It would deaden its beauty. Arthur! do you know that the swallows have come?" "The swallows! Then this summer weather will stay with us, for those birds have a sure instinct. It is early for them to be here." "I saw one this morning. It may be only an avant-courier, come to report on the weather to the rest." She laughed lightly at her own words, and there ensued another pause. Captain Bohun broke it. "What a shocking thing this is about Edmund North!"