“Do you imagine it 's just for silly foolishness I call you Great High Belovedest and Great High Favourite? You see, Walter dear, I gave John his title before I knew you, so I had to make some difference in yours. But they mean everything to me. I live in the sky such a lot, and it's a beautiful life; but I know there 's another life in the great world--a beautiful life, too.” She wrinkled her forehead. “Oh, it 's so difficult to explain! It's so hard to talk about feelings, because the moment you begin to talk about them, the feelings become so vague. It's like trying to tell any one the shape of a sunset.” She paused for a moment or two; Herold smiled at her and nodded encouragingly. Presently she went on: “I 'll try to put it this way. Often a gull, you see, comes hovering outside here and looks in at me, oh, for a long time, with his round, yellow eyes; and my heart beats, and I love him, for he tells me all about the sea and sky and clouds, where I'll never go,--not really,--and I live the sky life through him, and more than ever since you sent me that poem--I know it by heart--about the sea-gull. Who wrote it?” “Swinburne,” said Herold. “Did he write anything else?” “One or two other little things,” replied Herold, judiciously. “I 'll copy them out and bring them to you. But go on.” “Well,” she said, “yesterday afternoon a little bird--I don't know what kind of bird it was--came and sat on the window-sill, and turned his head this way and looked at me, and turned his head that way and looked at me, and I did n't move hand or foot, and I said, 'Cheep, cheep!' And he hopped on the bed and stayed there such a long time. And I talked to him, and he hopped about and looked at me and seemed to tell me all sorts of wonderful things. But he did n't somehow, although he came from the sky, and was a perfect dear. He must have known all about it, but he did n't know how to tell me. Now, you and John come from the beautiful world and tell me wonderful things about it; and I shall never go there really, but I can live in it through you.” Constable, the Great Dane, known by this abbreviated title in familiar life, rose, stretched himself, and went and snuggled his head beneath John's arm. John turned, his arm round the hound's neck. “But you can live in it through anybody, dear,” said he--“your Uncle Oliver, your Aunt Julia, or anybody who comes to see you.” Stellamaris looked at Herold for a characteristically sympathetic moment, and then at John. She sighed. “I told you it was hard to explain. But don't you see, Belovedest? You and Walter are like my gull. Everybody else is like the little bird. You know how to tell me and make me live. The others are darlings, but they don't seem to know how to do it.” John scratched his head. “I see what you mean,” said he. “I should hope so,” said Herold.