"Much more wonderful things happen every day. It’s much more wonderful that I can tell you this now: that I ever grew out of my love. For I loved him—ah, how deeply!" There was a long silence. Here was a curious thing. If any profane eye had lighted on the group—the young girl kneeling at Madame’s feet in the green coolness of the elm; that profane eye would have got the impression that here were a mother and daughter closely linked in some common sorrow, and clinging to each other for mutual consolation. In one sense that impression would have been the right one; but in one sense only. Their thoughts were worlds apart. Madame was remembering the days when she was Lucy Pryor, the daughter of the vicar of Otford. The great Lord Otford was Lord of the Manor, and his son, the Honourable John Sayle, being a delicate lad, was studying desultorily with the Vicar. The Vicar was more interested in butterflies than in Greek roots, and the boy and girl spent most of their time in the great vicarage garden. Thus the lad had grown strong and well set up. He was gazetted into the Army, and sent to America, where the war had just broken out. There he stayed five years. Lucy treasured the dearest memories of her playfellow, and when he came back, a splendid lieutenant, it is hardly necessary to say that they fell seriously in love. Their love was patent to everyone except the vicar and the old Lord. When the latter discovered it, his fury was indescribable. He drove the vicar out of his living, and had him transferred to a miserable parish in the East-end of London, where there was n’t a single butterfly; and he sent his son, who had retired from the army, on the Grand Tour. The lovers parted, vowing to be faithful; but young Sayle very soon forgot his vows in the excitement of travel. At Rome he met the Honourable Mabel Scott, daughter of Lord Polhousie, and, to cut a long story short, he married her, without a thought for poor Lucy, whom the shock nearly killed. Nor did he ever know the blow he had inflicted, nor ever hear from her, or of her, again. She was lost in the wilderness of London. A few years later he had succeeded his father, and was sent as Ambassador to Vienna. In the same year his son John—our Jack—was born, and his birth was closely followed by the mother’s death.