"It was, in a picnicky sort of way, and of course it kept one from getting even the tiniest bit moss-grown or worm-eaten. But the nuisance of it was that we never could find anything that we wanted, because things get so awfully muddled up in a move, and no one can remember where they have been put." "I conclude that a move is even worse than a spring-cleaning," I remarked. "Much, much worse, though on the same lines; a sort of spring-cleaning possessed by the Devil." "And I suppose that all the lost goods turned up eventually?" Fay nodded her head with the little trick of manner I had already unconsciously begun to love. "A move--like the sea--will eventually give up its dead; but it does so on the instalment principle." By that time we were down in the entrance-hall again, where Annabel was presiding over the tea-table, and Frank officiating as a sort of acolyte. "Come and have some tea," I said, giving Fay a seat at the gate-legged table. And I felt younger and gladder than I had felt for years at the sight of poor Wildacre's daughter sitting at my board and eating my salt. CHAPTER V THE FIRST MIRACLE That summer was to me a trip into fairyland. In the first place I threw up the role of uncle which Annabel has so thoughtfully cast for me, and played the part of Romeo instead: that is to say, for the first time in all my forty-two years, I fell madly and irretrievably in love. There is no need to expatiate upon my symptoms. Those who have themselves travelled through Arcady know all about the effect of the excursion without any explanations from me, and to those who have never set foot upon the enchanted shores, a description of the trip would be both wearisome and unintelligible. Consequently I (as I think wisely) forbear. But I not only visited the paradise of Love that happy summer; I also visited the paradise of Youth. For the first time in my life--save the time of my residence in Oxford, when my constitutional shyness marred the joy of intercourse with my contemporaries--I was thrown into the society of young people, and lived in an atmosphere of joyous adventure untainted by any breath of care or responsibility. Sometimes as I stood on the lawn of the Manor House and looked at the moss-grown old sundial, I thought to myself that for me the ancient miracle had once again been wrought, and the shadow on the dial had been moved ten degrees backward. But underneath this delightful fancy lay the hard, unyielding truth--supported by Burke and Debrett in print, and by Annabel and Ponty in practical politics--that, however juvenile and sentimental I might feel, I was still a man of forty-two, with the greater part of my life behind me, while Fay was standing on the threshold of her opening womanhood, with the kingdoms of this world still spread before her advancing feet.