“It’s very difficult to confess when one has done a mean thing,” Mrs. Bradley mused—and Alix almost had to laugh at hearing her, so impossible was it to imagine Mrs. Bradley involved in such a dilemma. “The cowardice and the meanness go together, don’t they, and Percy is so young that they are not worse, really, than weakness and timidity. He may outgrow it.” “I don’t think he will. I think he is fundamentally bad,” said Toppie, but now with more sadness than severity, and, turning to Alix she said: “Will you come and have tea with me to-morrow? We could have a little walk first, and then you could come back to tea with me and my father.” “But she’s going to school with us, Toppie! We have to teach her hockey!” cried Ruth. “Not to-morrow. She need not begin till Monday, need you, Alix?” Alix thought not, and though Ruth declared, “You can’t begin a day too soon for hockey,” Alix and Toppie had decided the question between them. CHAPTER VI “Tell me everything; everything you remember,” said Toppie. She was striding along over the heather, a grey woollen scarf tossed over her shoulder, a knitted cap drawn down closely over her ears, and she made Alix feel shy. She had seen that Toppie liked her and she had foreseen that she would question her. But as she felt the pressure of her longing she knew how little she could satisfy it. “I think I remember him best of all as I first saw him,” she said, searching her thoughts. “Yes. As you first saw him. Tell me about it. How did you first see him? He wrote to me, often, from Cannes; so much about your mother; so much about you. He said you were the dearest little girl. I understand why he said it—if you don’t mind my saying so.—But he couldn’t tell me what I most wanted to know, could he? How he himself looked to you.—What he said to you.—How he seemed.—You understand, I know, though you are so young, how one longs for everything that remains on earth of anyone one loves. People’s memories; they are precious. You understand that,” said Toppie. And Alix felt that only by the pressure of her longing was she thus lifted above her natural reticence. The very words she used were not habitual to her; she would have been shy of using such words ordinarily.