The drowsy atmosphere of the hot summer's afternoon, the Rhine wine, and the sound of his companion's voice, had such a pleasant influence upon Mr. Raymond, that he fell asleep presently while George was talking; and the young man, perceiving this, produced a Midlandshire newspaper, which he softly unfolded, and began to read. "Will you come and gather some flowers, Izzie?" whispered one of the orphans. "There are wild roses and honeysuckle in the lane outside. Do come!" Mrs. Gilbert was very willing to leave the arbour. She wandered away with the two children along those lonely paths, which now sloped downwards into a kind of ravine, and then wound upwards to the grove. The orphans had a good deal to say to their late governess. They had a new instructress, and "she isn't a bit like you, dear Mrs. Gilbert," they said; "and we love you best, though she's very kind, you know, and all that; but she's old, you know, very old,--more than thirty; and she makes us hem cambric frills, and does _go on so_ if we don't put away our things; and makes us do such horrid sums; and instead of telling us stories when we're out with her, as you used,--oh, don't you remember telling us Pelham? how I love Pelham, and Dombey!--about the little boy that died, and Florence--she teaches us botany and jology" (the orphans called it 'jology'), "and tertiary sandstone, and old red formations, and things like that; and oh, dear Izzie, I wish you never had been married." Isabel smiled at the orphans, and kissed them, when they entwined themselves about her. But she was thinking of the Alien's dreams, and whether Lady Gwendoline was the "Duchess! with the glittering hair and cruel azure eyes," regarding whom the Alien was cynical, not to say abusive. Mrs. Gilbert felt as if she had never read the Alien half enough. She had seen him, and spoken to him,--a real poet, a real, living, breathing poet, who only wanted to lame himself, and turn his collars down, to become a Byron. She was walking slowly along the woodland pathway, with the orphans round about her, like a modern Laocoon family without the serpents, when she was startled by a rustling of the branches a few paces from her, and looking up, with a sudden half-frightened glance, she saw the tall figure of a man between her and the sunlight. The man was Mr. Roland Lansdell, the author of "An Alien's Dreams." "I'm afraid I startled you, Mrs. Gilbert," he said, taking off his hat and standing bareheaded, with the shadows of the leaves flickering and trembling about him like living things. "I thought I should find Mr. Raymond here, as he said you were going to picnic, and I want so much to talk to the dear old boy. So, as they know me at the lodge, I got them to let me in."