"I ’ve no idea. He was leaving Ecuador before the hot season began, and was intending to stay at Jamaica as long as it was comfortable. He wrote he might be off for the South Sea Islands soon. He ’s had a tempting invitation." "He ’s a rover. His taste of army life gave him the fever. I wish he ’d get enough of it and come back. Things always ’go’ while Forrest’s home." Altogether, between Brant Hille and two or three other young people, Shirley found the garden-party endurable. But its cakes and ices spoiled her appetite for dinner, and the moment that meal was over, she was off to the tennis-court. Here she and Rufus played several sets in so spirited a fashion that Murray and Jane, strolling over the lawn to watch them, were moved to comment upon Shirley’s vigour. "I ’m just working off the garden-party," declared the girl, when her brother asked the cause of so much energy upon so warm an evening. "You should have put on your tennis skirt, dear," said Jane, as Shirley came up to her, racquet in hand. "So I ought, but I was afraid mother would be made ill by the sight of me, if I did, after dinner. Oh, how good it is to be at home! Let’s camp down here on the grass and send for the rest of the clan. Run over, Rufie, will you, and get all the Bells that will come?" As she spoke, Shirley dropped upon the smooth turf close by the big wicker chair that Murray had just drawn up for Jane, on the terrace at the edge of the court. Her cheeks were flushed by the lively exercise she had been taking, her hair curled moistly about her forehead. Jane looked at her with a touch of envy in her affectionate glance. Being Mrs. Murray Townsend, she supposed it became her to sit demurely in a chair, instead of putting herself, as she longed to do, beside Shirley, on the grass. But Murray, with no such restraining thought in his head, cast himself upon the turf beside his sister, at his wife’s feet. Presently Rufus returned, bringing Nancy and Ross McAndrew. Olive, spying the group upon the lawn, came trailing out in all her pretty finery of the afternoon. Two or three young neighbours appeared. By and by Peter Bell, just home from the paper-factory, looked across from the Gay Street porch and descried the distant group. Somebody had brought a banjo, and somebody else was essaying to sing a boating-song to the accompaniment. "Shall I go over?" thought Peter, when he had had his bath and his supper, and had come out upon the porch again.