"As for Shiela, I do not even pretend to understand her. I see her every day; to-day I lunched with Mrs. Cardross, and Shiela was there, apparently perfectly well and entirely her former lovely self. Yet she has never yet spoken of you to me; and, I learn from Mrs. Cardross, never to anybody as far as she knows. "She seems to be in splendid health; I have seen her swimming, galloping, playing tennis madly. The usual swarm of devoted youth and smitten middle-age is in attendance. She wears neither black nor colours; only white; nor does she go to any sort of functions. At times, to me, she resembles a scarcely grown girl just freed from school and playing hard every minute with every atom of heart and soul in her play. "Gray has an apology for a polo field and a string of ponies, and Shiela plays with the men--a crazy, reckless, headlong game, in which every minute my heart is in my mouth for fear somebody will cannon into her, or some dreadful swing of a mallet will injure her for life. "But everybody is so sweet to her--and it is delightful to see her with her own family--their pride and tenderness for her, and her devotion to them. "Mrs. Cardross asked me to-day what I thought might be the effect on Shiela if you came. And, dear, I could not answer. Mr. Cardross joined us, divining the subject of our furtive confab in the _patio_, and he seemed to think that you ought to come. "There is no reason to hesitate in saying that the family would be very glad to count you as one of them. Even a little snob like myself can see that there is, in this desire of theirs, no motive except affection for you and for Shiela; and, in a way, it's rather humiliating to recognise that they don't care a fig for the social advantage that must, automatically, accrue to the House of Cardross through such connections. "I never thought that I should so earnestly hope for such an alliance for you; but I do, Garry. They are such simple folk with all their riches--simple as gentle folk--kind, sincere, utterly without self-consciousness, untainted by the sordid social ambitions which make so many of the wealthy abhorrent. There is no pretence about them, nothing of that uncertainty of self mingled with vanity which grows into arrogance or servility as the social weather-vane veers with the breeze of fashion. Rather flowery that, for an old-fashioned spinster. "But, dear, there are other flowers than those of speech eloquent in the soft Southern air--flowers everywhere outside my open window where I sit writing you. "I miss Virginia, but Shiela compensates when she can find time from her breathless pleasure chase to give me an hour or two at tea-time.