"We never finished that conversation," he said, after a pause. "No; but then conversations never are finished, are they? They always seem to break off just when they are coming to the beginning. A bell rings, or there is an interruption, or one is told it is bedtime." "Or fools rush in with their word where you and I should fear to tread, and spoil everything." "Yes." "And have you been holding the wool and tying up the flowers, as you so graphically described, ever since you left Atherstone in July?" "I hope I have; I have tried." "I am sure of that," he said, with sudden earnestness, then added more slowly, "I have not wound any wool; I have only enjoyed myself." "Perhaps," said Ruth, turning her clear, frank gaze upon him, "that may have been the harder work of the two; it sometimes is." His light, restless eyes, with the searching look in them which she had seen before, met hers, and then wandered away again to the level meadows and the woods and the faint sky. "I think it was," he said at last; and both were silent. He reflected that his conversations with Ruth had a way of beginning in fun, becoming more serious, and ending in silence. The bells rang out suddenly. Charles thought they were full early. "Mr. Alwynn will wake up now," said Ruth; "I will tell him you are here." But before she had time to do more than rise from her chair, Mr. Alwynn came slowly round the yew hedge, and stopped suddenly in front of the chestnut-tree, amazed at what he saw beneath it. His mild eyes gazed blankly at Charles through his spectacles, gathering a pained expression as they peered over the top of them, which did not lessen when they fell on Ruth. Charles explained in a few words the purport of his visit, which had already explained itself quite sufficiently to Mr. Alwynn; and mentioning that he had waited in the hope of presently finding Mr. Alwynn "disengaged" (at this Mr. Alwynn blushed a little), asked leave to walk as far as the church with him to consult him on a small matter, etc. It was a neat sentence, but it did not sound quite so well the third time. It had lost by the heathenish and vain repetitions to which it had been subjected. "Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Alwynn, mollified, but still discomposed. "You should have waked me, Ruth;" turning reproachfully to his niece, whose conduct had never, in his eyes, fallen short of perfection till this moment. "Little nap after luncheon. Hardly asleep. You should have waked me." "There was Aunt Fanny," said Ruth, feeling as if she had committed some grave sin. "Ah-h!" said Mr. Alwynn, as if her reason were a weighty one, his memory possibly recalling the orchestral flourish which as a rule heralded his wife's return to consciousness. "True, true, my dear. I must be going," as the chime ceased. "Are you coming to church this afternoon?"