‘Yes,’ said Janet sedately, ‘for I’m growing up now, and mother says I want her most----’ ‘Isn’t it awful sap?’ said Tom, which was Eton (at that time) for boredom and hard work. He had the grace to speak low, and Janet gave him a glance upward with raised eyelids, and they both laughed, but softly that no one might ask why. ‘She thinks of such a lot of things that no one can be expected to know,’ said Tom; ‘not that I mind, for she lets me alone now. But I suppose you’ve got to read books all day.’ ‘Oh, no. Oh, Tom, we oughtn’t to talk like this and laugh, for she’s--mother’s very kind. She is indeed. She sees in a moment if I’m tired.’ ‘She’d need to,’ said Tom, ‘but I don’t suppose girls mind. You come out now and have a game. Will she let you? If she won’t, just steal away---- ’ ‘Oh, Tom,’ cried Janet again, ‘how can you speak of mother so? She never stops any fun, never--when there is any,’ the girl added after a pause. Lady Car was at the other end of the room, seated in the recess of a broad window which looked over the wide landscape. She had been waiting for Janet, who had asked her assistance in some work she was doing--trumpery work such as disturbed all Carry’s prejudices. Janet was painting flowers upon some little three-legged stools for a bazaar, and though she only copied the ‘patterns,’ she required in the execution some hints from her mother, who had once made considerable progress in the study of art. Janet was entirely unaware that Lady Car’s dreamy landscapes, which were full of distance and suggestion if nothing else, were in any way superior to her ‘patterns,’ and had made her call for aid with the frankest confidence that what she was doing was excellent art. And Carry had prepared the palette from which the dahlias and red geraniums were to be painted with as much care as if it had been wanted by Raphael. When she saw the two, after their whispered conversation at the door, suddenly disappear, perhaps she was not altogether sorry. It is possible that the painting of the stools was ‘sap’ to the mother also. She smiled at them with a little wave of her hand and shake of her head as they passed the window, in mild allusion to the abandoned work; but perhaps she was as much relieved as Janet was. She laid back her head upon the dim-coloured satin of her chair, and watched the two young creatures with their racquets, Janet carrying in her apron a supply of balls for their game. Seventeen and a half, fifteen and a half--in the bloom which was half infantile, half grown up, all fresh about them, nothing as yet to bring in black care. They were not handsome, but Tom had a sturdy manliness and strength, and Janet, her mother thought, looked everything that was simple and trustworthy--a good girl, not clever--but very good-natured and kind; and Tom not at all a bad boy--rough a little, but that was mere high spirits and boyish exuberance. They were neither of them clever. She said to herself, with