"How queer!" said Lily. "You don't think Nora has thought of it?" I asked. "Oh no, I am sure she hasn't," said Margaret. "I think it has grown vague to her now. You know she spoke about it to us when she first came home. You had prepared us, you remember, mamma, and told us not to make too much of it. The first year after, she _did_ think of it. She told me she was dreadfully frightened all that day for fear he should appear again. But since then I think she has gradually forgotten it." "She is a very sensible child," said my sister. "And she is especially kind and sympathising with any of the little ones who seem timid. I found her sitting beside Charlie the other night for ever so long because he heard an owl hooting outside, and was frightened." Just then a servant came out of the house, and said something to my brother-in-law. He got up at once. "It is Mr. Grenfell," he said to his wife, "and a friend with him. Shall I bring them out here?" "Yes, it would really be a pity to go into the house again--it is so nice out here," she replied. And her husband went to meet his guests. He appeared again in a minute or two, stepping out through the low window of the drawing-room, accompanied by the two gentlemen. Mr. Grenfell was a young man living in the neighbourhood, whom we had known from his boyhood; the stranger he introduced to us as Sir Robert Masters. He was a middle-aged man, with a quiet, gentle bearing and expression. "You will have some tea?" said my sister, after the first few words of greeting had passed. Mr. Grenfell declined. His friend accepted. "Go into the drawing-room, Lily, please, and ring for a cup and saucer," said her aunt, noting the deficiency. "There was an extra one, but some one has poured milk into the saucer. It surely can't have been you, Mark, for Tiny?" she went on, turning to her husband. "You _shouldn't_ let a dog drink out of anything we drink out of ourselves." My brother-in-law looked rather comically penitent; he did not attempt to deny the charge. "Only, my dear, you must allow," he pleaded, "that we do not drink our tea out of the _saucers_." On what trifling links hang sometimes important results! Had it not been for Mark's transgressing in the matter of Tiny's milk we should never have learnt the circumstances which give to this simple relation of facts--valueless in itself--such interest, speculative and suggestive only, I am aware, as it may be found to possess. Lily, in the meantime, had disappeared. But more quickly than it would have taken her to ring the bell, and await the servant's response to the summons, she was back again, carrying something carefully in her hand.