"Well, and so she was lovely! Anybody might have seen that. Of course I liked her, but if you mean that I am jealous of Arthur Newcome--no, thank you! I should not care for a wife who would listen to the first man who came along, as Lettice has done. She was a jolly little girl, and I took a fancy to her at first sight, but--do you remember our adventure in the old passage, Norah? Do you think Lettice would have stuck to me, and been as brave, and plucky, and loyal as you were in the midst of your fright? I never forgot that day. It was last night that I spoke to my father, before I heard a word about Lettice, or her matrimonial intentions." "So it was; I forgot that!" Norah smiled with recovered cheerfulness, for Rex's words had lifted a load from her mind, and the future seemed several shades less gloomy than it had done a few minutes before. "And if you went, how soon would you start?" "As soon as possible. I have wasted too much time already. The sooner I go, the sooner I can make my way and come home again to see you all. Three or five years, I suppose. You will be quite an old woman, Norah." "Yes; twenty-three! Lettice will be married; Hilary too, very likely. The Mouse will be as big as I was when you first knew us, and Raymond a doctor in practice. It will all be different!" Norah's voice was very low as she spoke the last words, and her face twitched as if she were about to break down once more. Rex looked at her with the same odd mingling of tenderness and vexation which he had shown a few minutes earlier. "Of course it will be different! We are not children any longer, and can't expect to go on as we have been doing. What was the Vicar's text the other Sunday?--`As an eagle stirreth up her nest'--I liked that sermon! It has been very happy and jolly, but it is time we stirred out of the old nest, and began to work for ourselves, and prepare for nests of our own. I am past twenty-one, my father need not be afraid to trust me, for I can look after myself, and though the life will be very different out there, I'll try to do nothing that I should be ashamed to tell you, Norah, when I come home!" Norah turned round with a flush, and an eager, outstretched hand, but only to behold Mr Rex marching along on the edge of the very flowerbeds, with a head in the air, and a "touch me if you dare" expression, at the sight of which his companion gave a dismal little smile.