"That's all right. Now you'll be able to help me with this jig-saw." She gave rather a good gasp at that. "Girl Blue, please. You've heaps of time, because, if you'd gone to The Grange, you wouldn't have got away yet. And it's a nice jig-saw, quite one of the family." "Eats out of your hand, I suppose?" "Rather. And sits up and barks for Baldwin and all the rest of it. 'A Young Diana' it's called. Appeared in last year's Academy, and--" But she was down on her knees on the lawn, staring at the tray by now. I joined her, wondering a little. "That's a bit of Merrylegs," she said, picking up one of the pieces, "and there's another. That's a bit of her dear nose, and there's her white stocking. Look here, we'll do her first." I sat down on the turf and looked at her. "Either," I said slowly--"either you're a witch, and that isn't allowed, or else you've had to learn this picture some time as a punishment." She laughed. "I sat for it," she explained. "That's all." It was my turn to gasp. "It's hanging in the dining-room at home now. Come along. There's a bit of my habit. Keep it with Merrylegs. I'll fit them together in a minute." I took off my coat, kneeled down beside her, and began to receive Merrylegs piecemeal. When she had picked out all of the mare, she cleared a little space, and began fitting the bits together at a rate that was astonishing. Then she turned her attention to the background. Laid upon its side, the mysterious ladder became a distant fence, and little by little a landscape grew into being under her small fingers. Suddenly she caught my arm. "Somebody's coming!" she whispered. I heard footsteps crunch on a path's gravel, then all was silent again. Whoever it was, was coming towards us over the lawn. A clump of rhododendrons hid us from them, and them from us. "Behind there!" I whispered, pointing to three tall elms at our back, which grew so close together that they formed a giant screen. She was out of sight in a second, and I had just time to throw my coat over the jig-saw and sit down upon the glove she had dropped before Berry appeared. "Hullo!" he said. "Hullo!" said I. "What are you doing?" "Doing?" "Yes, you know--executing, performing, carrying out?" "Go away!" I said. "You are trespassing upon a private reverie. Didn't you see the notice?" He shook his head. "You have, as it were, burst rudely open the door of the brown study in which I am communing with Nature and one or two of my imagination's friends. Kindly apologize and withdraw, closing the door as you go." "All right, Omar. Where's your Thou?" "You frightened her away." Berry grinned. "Heard the pattering of my little feet, I suppose!" "Yes. She wouldn't believe it was only footsteps, but let that pass. If she were to hear the same noise--forgive me--retreating, she would probably return." "Really think so?" "That is my steadfast conviction."