"I’m not," said Williams, angrily. "I want peace, eternal peace and happiness for every one." "Ah, so do I," put in Gordon. "My idea is to have a peaceful life, far from the roar of London, in a deep green vale, where I shall hear no one talking of shares, and where mines are unknown, and there are no Chinese or crushing reports. Why is it that most reports from mines are crushing? I wish I knew." "Ah, how sweet it would all be," said beautiful Penelope. "You could keep cows, Mr. Gordon." "I adore them," said Gordon. "There is a breed without horns, isn’t there?" "They look incomplete," said Jimmy. "What are you painting now?" asked Pen. "I’m not really painting, I’m modelling in clay, as you told me," said the obsequious lover. "Don’t you remember saying I was to model in clay? I’m doing Williams in clay. He looks very well in it. I’m also doing a bull going at a gate. When I get tired of Williams, I do the bull, and when I’m fatigued by the bull I go back to Williams." "And are they like?" asked Penelope. "Oh, exactly," replied Carew. And the interesting conversation was interrupted by Chloe and Ethel. But Penelope said to herself that they were all dears. "Mr. Williams is greatly improved," she murmured happily. "And Mr. Carew looks more healthy and less engrossed in himself. I was awfully glad to hear Mr. Gordon speak like that about a peaceful life." And Williams slipped Carew on the door-step and went to his club. He roared of war till two o’clock in the morning, and then got three out-of-work war correspondents in the corner and told them the great story of his love. But Jimmy went down to Chelsea, and damned modelling in clay to other impressionist painters, and had a real good time. As for Gordon of the "deep green vale," he went home and found a clerk waiting with a bundle of cables from all quarters of the mining globe. He sent a wire to Bramber to be let off an engagement to hear a debate on drains. On the whole, every one was tolerably happy, if we do not include Titania and the retriever who howled at nights. *CHAPTER VII.*