She glanced up. Her face was aglow with excitement, as had been Moore's. But before she finished her sentence, I saw a look of new expectancy in her eyes, and turning in the same direction, I caught sight of "the father," as we called him, coming towards us, a letter in _his_ hand also, and a look of inquiry and surprise in his face. "I think," he was beginning, as he reached our table. But mother cut him short. "Yes," she exclaimed, "you _are_ Mr Wynyard, and I--you must remember me?--I am your Maud's old friend--Geraldine Terence--now Geraldine Fitzmaurice." CHAPTER TWO. AN EMBRYO NOVELIST. So it was. A minute or two's conversation sufficed to establish for each the other's identity, and to gather up the loosened threads of former acquaintanceship. Worse than loosened indeed, for mother's face grew sad when Mr Wynyard told her of the death of her old friend, Maud, his wife, which had occurred several years previously. "I had no idea of it," she said. "We were so much abroad for some years that many changes may have taken place without my hearing of them. And curiously enough, I have been thinking of her--of your wife, Mr Wynyard, quite specially of late." "Don't you find that that is often the case?" was the reply. "When some old link is about to be renewed, one has a sort of foreshadowing of it. Was it possibly," he added with a little hesitation, "the involuntary association of some likeness to _her_ in either of my daughters, if you have happened to notice them?" "Who could help doing so?" said mother in her pretty, gracious manner. "But no," she went on, "I don't think it was that! It was even before your arrival here that I was thinking of Maud. When I know them better I shall probably see some likeness in your daughters, but it has not struck me." "We think Margaret the most like her," said the father. "Margaret is Mrs Percy--she and her husband are travelling with us," and he nodded his head in the direction of his own party. "But your supper will be getting cold--" "Come up to our sitting-room afterwards," said mother, "for our mutual introductions." And so they did, and before I fell asleep that night I knew all about them, and had--I may as well confess it once for all--fallen over head and ears in love with the younger girl, Isabel! Our guesses had been, as has been shown, correct so far as they went. The party of four were wonderfully "untravelled" for even those days. And the charm of novelty greatly enhanced their enjoyment of Weissbad and its neighbourhood. Mr Percy and his wife were thoroughly pleasant young people, and on further acquaintance, mother saw much in the latter that recalled her old friend.