"I wonder," the lady began, then stopped suddenly. Billy turned his rosy face towards her, but she did not speak. The child, because he knew one woman so well, divined that this woman was tired and sad. So he, too, was silent. The horses’ hoofs went thud, swish, thud, swish, through the foot-deep decaying beech leaves. A delicate silver mist gathered round the roots of the great trees; like the bridal veil of a rosy girl, it spread itself over the stretches of ruddy space. They had turned into the grass-carpeted main avenue of the Earl’s famous park, and Billy sniffed delightedly at what he called "the good smell of Christmas." Happy Billy! to whom the death of summer brought no sad thoughts. "I’m afraid you are very tired!" he said suddenly, in his kind boyish voice. "Would you like to stop a bit?" The lady started. Not, indeed, that she had forgotten Billy; she was in a subconscious way basking in the warmth that radiates from all simple and kindly people. Her rebellious mood of the last weeks had passed. That mood in which she loved to assert her fascination for men; mentally snapping her fingers in the faces of her sister women so ready to think evil of her. Certain kinds of men come to heel easily and she felt her triumph to be but a poor one. This half-hour’s companionship of a friendly little boy had altered everything; at the moment she no longer felt herself to be the sport of circumstance; but her heart ached and her voice was weariful as she said:—"No, we won’t stop. I am tired, but we are only about three miles from home. You live just outside the town, don’t you?" "Yes! at that tall grey gabled house where the cross roads meet!" "I have seen you go into the drive. Do you do lessons—who teaches you?" "Partly Mother, partly Dad. I am not clever at lessons." Billy flushed as he spoke; he was fully aware that his small love for books was something of a reproach. People expect so much from the child of clever parents. He did not know that his strongly developed sporting instincts were the pride of his bookish father’s heart; nor how cheerfully that father had forgone many a rare edition, that Billy might ride to hounds. "A modest lad, a good lad; let him play about in the sunshine—the rest will come." So Billy’s father, who would relate with glee how successfully Billy had vetoed one topic of conversation. On an evening, not so very long ago, Billy had put his head round the drawing-room door, demanding, "Is Dad going to talk about ’The Dark Lady of the Sonnets?’ ’cause, if he is, I’m not coming in. I’ve had enough of hearing about her." So Dad vowed he would talk of her no more, and discussed the habits of "Pug" with a learning that astonished and charmed Billy beyond telling.