Week after week went by in our trance of contentment. I did not look forward, but was content to exist in the languorous summer heat--dreaming through the sunny days with Willie by my side, and thinking not at all of the future. I suppose my elders were content with the situation, as they must have known that such propinquity could have but one ending. There was a man by whom I was attracted and who had paid me considerable attention--E.S., stationed at Purfleet. He was a fine athlete, and used to fill me with admiration by jumping over my pony's back without touching him at all. I sometimes thought idly of him during these days with Willie, but was content to drift along, until one day my sister asked me to drive over with a note of invitation to dinner for the officers at Purfleet. In the cool of the evening I set out, with Willie, of course, in attendance. Willie, on arrival, sprang out of the pony cart to deliver the note, and as he was jumping in again glanced up at the window above us, where it happened E. S. and another officer were standing. Without a moment's hesitation Willie leant forward and kissed me full on the lips. Furious and crimson with the knowledge that the men at the window had seen him kiss me, I hustled my poor little pony home, vowing I would never speak to Willie again; but his apologies and explanation that he had only just wanted "to show those fellows that they must not make asses of themselves" seemed so funny and in keeping with the dreamy sense I had of belonging {13} to Willie that I soon forgave him, though I felt a little stab of regret when I found that E. S. declined the invitation to dinner. He never came again. Willie had now to rejoin his regiment, and in the evening before his going, as I was leaving the drawing-room, he stopped to offer me a rose, kissing me on the face and hair as he did so. A few mornings after I was sleeping the dreamless sleep of healthy girlhood when I was awakened by feeling a thick letter laid on my cheek and my mother leaning over me singing "Kathleen Mavourneen" in her rich contralto voice. I am afraid I was decidedly cross at having been awakened so suddenly, and, clasping my letter unopened, again subsided into slumber. So far nearly all my personal communication with Willie when he was away had been carried on by telegraph, and I had not quite arrived at knowing what to reply to the sheets of poetic prose which flowed from his pen. Very frequently he came down just for a day to Rivenhall, and I drove to meet him at the station with my pony-chaise. Then we used to pass long hours at the lake fishing for pike, or talking to my father, who was always cheered by his society.