"Then you are positively inhuman!" declared Maryllia--"And absolutely unnatural! You are, really! Every two-legged creature on earth wants to find out all the ins and cuts of every other two- legged creature,--for if this were not the case wars would be at an end, and the wicked cease from troubling and the weary be at rest. So just because you don't want to know about my two friends in Paris, I'm going to tell you. Louis Gigue is the greatest teacher of singing there is,--and Cicely Bourne is his pupil, a perfectly wonderful little girl with a marvellous compass of voice, whose training and education I am paying for. I want her with me here--and I have sent for her;--Gigue can come on if he thinks it necessary to give her a few lessons during the summer, but of course she is not to sing in public until she is sixteen. She is only fourteen now." Walden listened in silence. He was looking at his companion sideways, and noting the delicate ebb and flow of the rose tint in her cheeks, the bright flecks of gold in the otherwise brown hair, and the light poise of her dainty rounded figure as she stepped along beside him with an almost aerial grace and swiftness. "She was the child of a Cornish labourer,"--went on Maryllia. "Her mother sold her for ten pounds. Yes!--wasn't it dreadful!" This, as John's face expressed surprise. "But it is true! You shall hear all the story some day,--it is quite a little romance. And she is so clever!--you would think her ever so much older than she is, to hear her talk. Sometimes she is rather blunt, and people get offended with her-but she is true--oh, so true!--she wouldn't do a mean action for the world! She is just devoted to me,--and that is perhaps why I am devoted to her,--because after all, it's a great thing to be loved, isn't it?" "It is indeed!" replied John, mechanically, beginning to feel a little dazed under the influence of the bright eyes, animated face, smiling lips and clear, sweet voice--"It ought to be the best of all things." "It ought to be, and it is!" declared Maryllia emphatically. "Oh, what a lovely bush of lilac!" And she hastened on a few steps in order to look more closely at the admired blossoms, which were swaying in the light breeze over the top of a thick green hedge-- "Why, it must be growing in your garden! Yes, it is!--of course it is!--this is your gate. May I come in?" She paused, her hand on the latch,--and for a moment Walden hesitated. A wave of colour swept up to his brows,--he was conscious of a struggling desire to refuse her request, united to a still more earnest craving to grant it. She looked at him, wistfully smiling. "May I come in?" she repeated. He advanced, and opened the gate, standing aside for her to pass. "Of course you may!"--he said gently,--"And welcome!" XIV