The girl, having never before looked upon her friend as a riddle, sat wondering at her.... In that sheltered corner the savoury scents of the meal mingled with the inevitable pine scent and the tang of sea while the sun flung blue shadows upon the bright table and the plates; dancing delicate silhouettes of vine leaves and tendrils and passion flowers. There drifted to them from the woods the sound of the cow bells; "tonkle--tankle--tonkle--" and from the shore the distant roar of breakers. Suddenly, as the inn servant removed and brought coffee, Mrs. Cartwright broke out, apparently à propos of nothing. "Ah, well! "'Better an omelette _aux fines herbes_ where Love is, than the Carlton and a chaperon therewith.' Forgive my quoting my own works, but I was thinking of one of those books of mine that I--that we never write. Plenty of other things in Life like that. Men we didn't marry, their babies that we've never had----" Then she laughed. "I wonder what people would have thought if I'd ever written that book. It's the one I threatened your friend Captain Ross with, Olwen, the other night. Would you like to hear a bit of it, girls?" And without waiting to hear whether they would or not, she went on in that deep, whimsical attractive voice of hers: "'Don't tell your mother beforehand that I am a lady. Possibly I'm not. You won't know. But she will.' I remember thinking of that when a great friend of mine in the navy told me about his engagement. He made a joke at the time about sailors and their _culte_ for _mésalliances_.... Here's another bit: "'Always write to me when you're away. Never mind if you've nothing to say. It doesn't matter if you don't say anything. Only write!' I can see the young man now that I said that to," said Mrs. Cartwright, and the expression in her eyes was of one who looks down from a hill-top upon the landmarks passed, far back. "He'd only been married a month to a school chum of mine, and was suddenly ordered off. He couldn't take her. I told him that even if the mail only went out twice a week there was no reason that it should not take three letters each time----" Here Miss Walsh, who did not seem to be listening, broke in. "I think that's very true." She fingered in her bag an envelope with the printed label, "Controle Postale Militaire," and looked cheered. "This young man numbered his letters after that. Then I remember a girl friend--ah! she's a grand-mamma now--married before I did. I remember her once saying something that I should have stolen from her. "'Do you mind not giving me these useful solid, durable presents of leather, which you men love and which are hideous in our eyes? Why not something charming that won't last; scent, powder, or chocolates in a pretty box?'