"But, Uncle Paul! How many runs did you make?" cried Blasius, eagerly. It had been his first term at Harrow, and this tale he had been hearing of past prowess in cricket was too interesting to be thus left pointless. "How many? I forget. Perhaps your aunt will remember----" A little spasm of pain passed over Violet's face. "How lazy you are, Paul! You will end by remembering nothing." "Why should I remember when you do it so much better than I? It was a good lot, Blasius, and I recollect being awfully proud at the time. But these things slip by, somehow. When you are as old as I am----" "You really ought to go in, Paul!" came that warning voice, with a studied patience in it. "This is not the Riviera, remember." "No, worse luck! I suppose it is the proper thing to come down here, but it is an awful bore in some ways. Ah! there's George, back from the hill--well, he likes it, that is one comfort." Blanche stood at the jasmine-covered porch to welcome her husband, for the advancing years had, as is so often the case, decided her final selection of a part in favour of the devoted wife--the fact being that she was becoming a trifle too matronly for most of the others, while the growing independence of the children stood in the way of a satisfactory rendering of the maternal one. "Taking him in? That is right," she said approvingly, to her sister-in-law, as Paul, on his wife's arm, paused to look at the birds old John's son was laying out on the step. Old John himself, sturdy on his legs as ever, but mindful of the dignity due to head keeperdom, standing by. And then, not to be outdone, she turned to her husband. "George! you ought not to dawdle about in wet feet. Please go in, too, and change." "Wet? My dear, the moors are as dry as a bone. Aren't they, John?" "As dry as they will have been these fifty years, whatever," replied the old man. "As dry as they would be that summer, Gleneira, when you and----" "Do come in, Paul!" came the anxious voice, again. "Look, how the mist is rising----" "By Jove! that's a fine young bird!" interrupted Paul, inconsequently, with a flash of his old interest. "By the way, Violet, you might tell the cook not to roast them to cinders as she did last night, and, while I remember it, I wish you'd speak to Cunningham about that horse----" "Really, Paul!" said his sister; "I think you might give the grooms their orders yourself." He smiled kindly, and laid his other hand upon his wife's, as together they went slowly to the smoking-room. "I am afraid I give you a lot of trouble," he said apologetically, as he held the door open for her to pass through--"but I have such a wretched memory, and you are so kind." "Don't say that, Paul! don't say that; what does it matter? I am quite happy if you are." She watched his face curiously, eagerly, almost passionately; but she saw nothing save that easy, kindly smile.