"Wasn't it kind of him," pursues Lizzie, "to take me down to Hampton Court, to meet Alfred and you? He wouldn't let Alfred know beforehand, he said, because he wanted to give him a pleasant surprise." "Did Mr. Sheldrake know, then, that we were at Hampton Court?" "Yes, dear; he wouldn't have taken me down else." "How did he find out?" muses Lily, a little disquieted. "Alfred may have mentioned it to him the day before, and yet he seemed surprised to see us there." "Riddle-me-riddle-me-ree," interrupts Lizzie gaily, to dispel the cloud; adding, with a wise air, "you don't know men so well as I do, my love." She draws Lily into the garden, and touches a key-note to which she knows Lily's nature will respond, to the exclusion of distressful thought. She talks of Alfred and of her love for him; they sit in the summer-house until Pollypod comes to them, and diverts them from their theme. "Lily," says Pollypod, "don't you wish Felix was here?" The colour mounts to Lily's face, and to hide it Lily bends to Pollypod, and caresses her. "And who is Felix, Polly?" asks Lizzie. "Felix is a gentleman; mother says there never _was_ any body as good as him. He bought me my doll. I wish I had it with me. And we all love him so--don't we, Lily? I love him, and mother loves him, and Lily loves him, and Snap loves him." "O!" says Lizzie; and that is all she says. But there is a great deal of meaning in the little word, if any value can be attached to the significant tone in which she utters it. CHAPTER XXIX. FELIX FINDS HIS OYSTER DIFFICULT TO OPEN. The little word uttered by Lizzie in the concluding paragraph of the previous chapter is like the dropping of the curtain for a time upon the histories of the personages, good and bad, who are playing their parts in this drama of every-day life. For if it in any way resembles what it professes to be, the drama here presented should represent the doings of the time in which it is written; in so far, of course, as they enter into the ordinary life of the ordinary characters who are introduced into it. The autumn and winter have passed, and the beautiful buds herald the yearly miracle of spring. Certain changes have taken place in the circumstances and lives of the movers in our story, and of these changes it is necessary here to make record.