She asked me to come and see her flowers in the bay window of the drawing-room, which she had fitted up as a tiny conservatory; while her mother sat down to the piano and played dreamy music in a desultory fashion. I like dreamy music, although it always makes me melancholy-- indeed, all music affects me the same way, in spite of my not being by any means what you would call a sad person. On the contrary, I am supposed to be one of the most light-hearted fellows imaginable, and, certainly, laugh more than I ever cry. However, mirth and sadness are closer allies than people generally suspect. All emotion proceeds, more or less, from hysteria. While Mrs Clyde was playing, Min and I got talking. She thanked me for coming early; and upbraided the absent guests for thinking it fashionable to come later than bidden. We discussed the rival merits of a scarlet japonica and a double fuchsia, giving the palm of merit to the former, though the latter had some wondrous lobes; and I was also asked my opinion whether her favourite maidenhair fern would survive a sudden and unaccountable blight which had fallen upon it a few days before. She then showed me the identical violets I had given her that Christmas morning, now so long passed by: she had tipped the stalks with sealing wax and preserved them in cotton wool, so that they looked as fresh as when first gathered. "There!" she said, with an air of triumph. "There, Mr Lorton! I have kept them ever since." "Mr Lorton!" I repeated, "who is he? I don't know him." "Well, `Frank,' then--will that please you better, you tiresome thing?" "You know you promised," I said, apologetically. "Did I?" she asked, with charming naivete. "Why, have you forgotten that night already?" I said, in a melancholy tone. "Don't be so lugubrious," she said. "You have to amuse me. You mustn't remember all my promises." "Are they so unsubstantial?" I asked. "No, they're not, sir!" she said, stamping her foot in affected anger. "But what do you say to my keeping your violets so long, Frank?" "What do I say?" I repeated after her, looking my delight into her eyes; when, a frantic chord, struck deep down in the bass by Mrs Clyde, marking the finish of some piece of Wagner's, recalled us both to every- day life. As nobody else had yet arrived, Min challenged me to a game of chess. I allowed her to win the first game easily. She pouted, saying that she supposed I thought it below my dignity to put forth my best energies in playing against a lady! Thereupon, I _did_ exert myself; but, she was just as provokingly dissatisfied. I took her queen. She protested it was unfair. I offered to restore it to her; she would not have it at any price;--she wished me to play the game, she said, just as if I were playing with a man. I checkmated her. She got up in a pet, saying that chess was a nasty, stupid, tiresome thing, and that she would not play it any longer. O, the contrariness of feminine nature!