Lavinia, standing on the sunny mid-path, with a bundle of bass-matting, with which she has been training a young hop round a pole, lying on the ground beside her, has just raised herself from her knees to admire the rich red look that makes the cherry trees blush. She knows it to be due to the young leaves which to-morrow will have disappeared in the storm of white. They will be bridal to-morrow. _Bridal!_ She repeats the word over to herself. This is the 28th of April. On precisely this day month, she will be bridal too. The thought, apparently, is not one that invites dwelling upon, for she turns back to her bass-matting and her hop; and, in so doing, becomes aware of a figure--that of Mrs. Darcy--climbing the gravel walk towards her. Mrs. Darcy’s visits to Lavinia are much rarer than Lavinia’s to Mrs. Darcy; partly because she is a good deal busier, and partly because she does not like Rupert. The first reason is naturally the only one allowed to appear in the relations between the friends. “To what am I indebted for the honour of this visit?” asks the girl, with playful formality. Her friend’s answer is not quite so ready as usual; yet her wiry slimness cannot be breathed by so gentle a hill. “Miss Brine has come back. She has killed one relation, and cured another!” “How do the children bear it?” “They are inconsolable! The thought of having to be comparatively clean for an indefinite time has almost broken them down!” Both laugh. “It is an ill wind that blows nobody good; so you are able to come and change the weather with me?” There is a little surprise and inquiry in the key used; but Mrs. Darcy accepts it as a statement apparently, for she stands, taking in, with eyes and ears and nostrils, the universal blossoming and courting in earth and air. “Don’t you wish we could paraphrase Joshua’s command, ‘Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon,’ and say, ‘Spring, stand thou still in April’?” “Do I?” answers the other, uneasily. “I do not think so!” Her friend looks at her with covert observation, to verify that, despite the peaceful quality of the most soothing of all occupations, gardening, peace is not the dominant note in the concert of Miss Carew’s emotions this gaudy, sweetly clamorous April morning. “In point of fact, I came to bring you a message.” “From whom?” Is it fancy that the question is jerked out with some sort of difficulty? “From Mrs. Prince. She wants to persuade you to pay Captain Binning another visit this afternoon. She tells me”--with a faint tinge of surprise--“that you refused when she asked you two days ago.” “I was there on Monday--that is only five days ago!” Lavinia has knelt down on the gravel again, and is busy with her hop. Her voice sounds a trifle hard. “Five days can be pretty long to a sick man, more especially to a sick man nursed by Féodorovna Prince!”