"And the game," he said, "means nothing to her. It never has. Years ago she and I got into the final at Hunstanton. She put me dead on the green at the thirteenth, and I holed out. When I turned round to say we were three up, she wasn't there. Eventually I found her looking for her iron. She'd laid it down, to start on a daisy chain." "I only put it down for a second," protested Jill, "and you must admit the daisies were simply huge." "What happened?" said Adèle, bubbling. "The daisy chain won us the match. She was much more interested in the former, and actually continued its fabrication between her shots." We passed to the next tee. As I was addressing the ball-- "Don't top it," said Jill. "Have I been topping them to-day?". "No, Boy. Only do be careful. I believe there's a lark's nest down there, and it'd be a shame----" "There you are," said Jonah. "Now," said I, "I'm dead certain to top it." "Well, then, drive more to the right," said Jill. "After all, it's only a game." "I'll take your word for it," said I. Of course, I topped the ball, but at the next hole my grey-eyed cousin discovered that our caddie had a puppy in his pocket, so we won easily. As we made for the club-house-- "Only ten days to Christmas," said Adèle. "Can you believe me?" "With an effort," said I. "It's almost too hot to be true." Indeed, it might have been a June morning. The valley was sleepy beneath the mid-day sun; the slopes of the sheltering foot-hills looked warm and comfortable; naked but unashamed, the woods were smiling; southward, a long flash spoke of the sunlit peaks and the dead march of snow; and there, a league away, grey Pau was basking contentedly, her decent crinoline of villas billowing about her sides, lazily looking down on such a fuss and pother as might have bubbled out of the pot of Revolution, but was, in fact, the hospitable rite daily observed on the arrival of the Paris train. "I simply must get some presents," continued my wife. "We'll start to-morrow." I groaned. "You can't get anything here," I protested. "And people don't expect presents when you're in the South of France." "That's just when they do," said Adèle. "All your friends consider that it's a chance in a lifetime, and, if you don't take it, they never forgive you." "Well, I haven't got any friends," said I. "So that's that. And you used to tell me you had very few." "Ah," said Adèle, "that was before we were engaged. That was to excite your sympathy." I appealed to my cousins for support. "Nothing doing," said Jonah. "If you didn't want this sort of thing, what did you marry for? For longer than I can remember you've seen your brother-in-law led off like an ox to the shambles--he's there now--financially crippled, and then compelled to tie up and address innumerable parcels, for the simple reason that, when they're at the shops Daphne's faculty of allotment invariably refuses to function."