"Nonsense!" Rex sat down in a heap on the grass, in front of the bench where the girls were seated. "Which?" "Ah, that's the mystery! She is to have her choice, and she won't say which it is to be until Wednesday night--two days more. So, you see, you had better be polite, for you mayn't have me with you much longer." "I am always polite to you," said Rex moodily: and the statement passed unchallenged, for however much he might tease Norah, and snap at Hilary, he was always considerate for the feelings and comfort of "Lovely Lettice!" "Oh, Norah, Norah! I hope it won't be you!" cried Edna, clasping her hands round her friend's arm in warm-hearted affection. "What should I do without you? We have been so happy, and have had such fun! Three years! What an age of a time! We shall be quite grown-up." "Yes; and after that, father is going to take a house in London, because the boys will have left school, and it will be better for them. Isn't it horrid to think that after to-day it may never be the same for one of us again? She will only come back as a visitor, for a few weeks at a time, and everything will be strange and different--" "And Rex may go abroad before the end of the three years, and Hilary may marry--and--oh, a hundred other horrible things. Perhaps we may never meet again all together like this until we are quite old and grey- headed. We would write to one another, of course; stiff, proper sort of letters like grown-up people write. How funny it would be! Imagine you writing to me, Edna--`My dear Eleanora, you must not think my long silence has arisen from any want of affection towards you and yours. ... And how has it been with you, my valued friend?'" The burst of laughter which greeted this speech did something to liven the gloom which was fast settling upon the little party, and presently Mr Bertrand's voice was heard calling from the verandah-- "Now then, children, what are we to do until four o'clock? Do you want to go on the lake?" "It's no good, sir. We could row round it in ten minutes." This from Rex, with all the scorn of a young man who owned a _Una_ of his own on Lake Windermere. "Do you want to scramble up to the Tarn, then? I don't. It's too hot, and we should have no time to spend at the top when we got there." "Let us go to the Wishing Gate, father," suggested Norah eagerly. "It's a nice walk; and I got what I wished for last summer--I did really--the music lessons! I'm sure there is something in it." "Let us go then, by all means. I have a wish of my own that I should be glad to settle. Helen, will you come?" "No, thank you, Austin, I will not. I can wish more comfortably sitting here in the shade of the verandah I've been once before, and I wouldn't drag up there this afternoon for a dozen wishes." "And Rayner--what will you--?"