“Yes. And then she turned to me and beamed—‘_This is_ my _country_.’ It certainly is a pretty place. There’s a fine view over the downs; but too hilly for me. We climbed up and down lanes and picked ridiculous bits of twig and green stuff till I protested. Then she took me into the churchyard. We wandered about: very pleasant it was: such a hot spring day, and pretty pinkish flowers—what did she call the stuff?—cuckoo-pint, springing from the graves—and daffodils. Then we sat down in the shadow of the church to eat our lunch. We began to discuss architecture and I was growing interested, really beginning to enjoy myself—some of it was pre-Norman—when a man climbed over the stile from the field behind the church, and came down the path towards us. As he passed, Madala looked up and he looked down, and up she jumped in a moment. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘I do believe—I _do_ believe—’ You know that little chuckly rise in her voice when she’s pleased—‘I do believe it’s you!’ ‘Oh, Madala,’ I said, ‘the sandwiches!’ They were in a paper on her lap, you know. She had scattered them right and left. But I might have talked to the wind. I must say he had perfectly respectable manners. He turned back at once, and smiled at her, and hesitated, and began to pick up the sandwiches, though he evidently didn’t know her. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘don’t you remember? Aren’t you Dr. Carey? You mended my camel when I was little. I’m Madala!’ She was literally brimming over with pleasure. But, you know, such a silly way to put it! If she had said ‘Madala Grey’ he would have known in a moment. There were a couple of _Eden Walls_ on the bookstall as we went through. I saw them. However, he remembered her then. He certainly seemed pleased to see her, in his awkward way. He stood looking down at her, amused and interested. People always got so interested in Madala. Haven’t you noticed it? Even people in trams. Though I thought to myself at the time—‘How absurd Madala is! What can they have in common?’ Yes, I thought it even then.” “Well, what had they in common?” “Heaven knew! She was ten and he was twenty-five when they last met. He knew her grand-people: he had mended her dolls for her: he lived in her old home: that, according to her, was all that mattered. She said to me afterwards, I remember, ‘Just imagine seeing him! I _was_ pleased to see him. He belongs in, you know.’ ‘No, Madala,’ I said, ‘I don’t know. Such a fuss about a man you haven’t seen since you were a child! I call it affectation. It’s a slight on your real friends.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘but he belongs in.’ She looked quite chastened. She said—‘Nita, it wasn’t affectation. I believe he was pleased too—honestly!’ He was. Who wouldn’t be? You know the effect she used to make.” “What did he say?” asked the Baxter girl.