A little later, when he awoke with a start, conscious of the strange refreshment which even a moment's sleep brings, he found that Judith's hand was in his. "It has been a wonderful summer," Judith murmured. "If the sun did not shine again, for months, we should have no right to complain. First the lilac, and the chestnuts, and the hawthorn; then the laburnum and the rhododendrons; and now the wild roses are beginning to show in the hedges. The skylarks singing at dawn; the cuckoo calling all day; the thrushes and the blackbirds whistling in the hot afternoon; and the nightingales, singing at night, as they are singing now! The bright sun in the morning, the blue sky, and the green of the trees. The haymakers at work in the fields. The whir of the haycutting machine. The Imps tumbling over each other in the hay, and calling to me. Diana's foal in the paddock, all long legs, and short tail. The wren's nest in the garden, with six little wrens in it for Jenny Wren to feed. The afternoon sunlight on the trees; Uncle Bond in the garden, chuckling over his roses; the sunset; the young rabbits, with their white bob-tails, scuttling in and out of the hedges; a patter of rain on the leaves; the breeze in the trees; the twilight; the cool of the evening; and then the blue of the night sky, the stars, and the golden moon, in a bed of billowy, drifting clouds. The scent of the hayfields, the scent of the flowers; and the nightingales singing, in the garden, as they are singing now! "The nightingales are singing about it all. Can you hear what they say? I have been trying to put the nightingales' song into words. Listen! Those long, liquid notes--" The night air was heavy with the scent of the night-blossoming stock, in the flowerbed, immediately below the verandah rail. The nightingales sang as if at the climax of their rivalry for mastery. A huge owl lumbered, rather than flew, across the shadowy garden. For a moment, it seemed to the King, as if the verandah, the house, the garden, and even the night sky, stood away from them, receded, and that he and Judith were alone, together, in infinite space. The moment passed. Judith stood up. "Bed!" she said, speaking with the note of smiling, kindly discipline, with which she ruled the Imps, and, when she chose, even Uncle Bond and himself. "You will be able to sleep now, Alfred." The King rose obediently to his feet to find, with a certain dull, dazed surprise, that he was stiff and sore, and hardly able to stand. Dazed as he was, he did not fail to see the look of sharp anxiety which shone, for a moment, in Judith's eyes. "Lean on me, old man!" she exclaimed. "You are done up. I'll see you to your room. They have been working you too hard. Do they never think of--the man--in your Service?" She put out her arm, as she spoke, and slipped it skilfully round his shoulders.