Frank had the enviable faculty of keeping comparatively cool on very hot days, just as on occasions heating and stirring to the spirit his nature seldom boiled. But to-day he was much hotter spiritually than physically, and Helen’s genuine pleasure to see him, which shone in her eyes and her smile and vibrated in her voice, did not reduce this genial heat. “I have not done wrong,” he asked, “to come and interrupt you? They told me at the vicarage that you were here.” “No, indeed, you have not,” said she, shaking hands. “Really, I was longing for an interruption. Look!” and she pointed to the titles of her mended stack of books. He glanced at them with a smile. “Really, without undue conceit, I don’t wonder,” he said. “And so this is the Room you told me about in London?” His eyes wandered round, looking at the maps and the colored chart of geological formation, at the harmonium, the bagatelle-board. Then suddenly all the girl’s loyalty to her father rose in her. “Ah, don’t laugh,” she said. “I can’t bear that you should laugh.” He looked at her quite gravely. “Heaven forbid,” he said. “Here, as in that map of geological strata, there is an auriferous reef. There is to be found a little belt of gold in everything which we may have to do, as long as it is not--not nasty. The trouble sometimes is to find it. Haven’t you struck it this morning?” Helen sat down with a little sigh. “No. Help me to dig a little,” she said. “Look at the soil! ‘Sunday Magazine.’ A serial. Then ‘Round the tea-table,’ with a receipt for muffins. ‘Muffins’ is torn. I must mend it. Missionary work among the aborigines of Somaliland. Oh, dear! What has it all got to do with me--this me?” she cried. “Perhaps you have not yet mended enough to find out,” he suggested. “That is possible. All the same I have mended a good deal. Now I am going to talk ‘Lady Sunningdale’ for two minutes; at least there are fifty distinct and separate things I want to say in one breath. First of all, please smoke; the Room smells of Sunday-school. Yes, and give me one,--if my father appears suddenly you must say it was you. Next, I suppose you have come from Fareham. How is Lady Sunningdale? And you’ll stop for lunch, of course. Next, Martin. He is going to leave Cambridge at the end of the long. He is going to settle in London in the autumn and study under Monsieur Rusoff. Oh, why wasn’t I born a boy? I suppose you can’t tell me. So once again about Martin, thanks. What a good time we had in London! I have never enjoyed a fortnight more. Is every one as kind as that always?” “I think they always will be to you,” said he. “You two took London by storm. We all went into mourning and retirement into the country when you left.” Helen laughed. “You don’t look as if any grief particularly weighed on you,” she said. “Clearly not now,” said he.