"If you'd come back with me to Berkshire and hunt, you'd soon forget all your troubles." "Should I? I wonder. Not by hunting, Daisy. You would not enjoy hunting so much, if you weren't so proud of yourself for learning to ride so late in life." "I wish we'd had our place in Berkshire when I was little," said Daisy regretfully. "I _should_ have been a horsewoman then. The pater might just as well have launched out a bit earlier. We didn't really save anything by living in London." "But it was fun when we used to play up here," said Mary. "Do you remember when we made those paper boxes and filled them with ink and dropped them on the pavement? Oh, and don't you remember when Eustace Arnesby came to tea, and he dropped one on an old gentleman's hat?" "Eustace is at Sandhurst now," said Daisy. "Talking of young love, I did have rather a pash for him." "Daisy!" "What's the matter?" "You do say such terrible things." "In fact," Daisy continued, "when I look back at my innocent girlhood, I seem to have spent my time falling in and falling out of love with lanky boys. And you, my darling Mary, are trying to make out that that kind of thing is serious. Well, if it was, my young life has been lived, for at present I couldn't fall in love with anybody." "I believe I could," said Mary meditatively. "But not with Jemmie Alison. If you really think about it, marriage is terrible." "Why?" Here was Mary's opportunity to ask Daisy a few direct questions; but, when it came to the point, she could not bring herself to do so. She could not imagine that she would ever feel more intimate with any other girl than she felt with Daisy, and if she could not ask Daisy she could not ask anybody. "Why?" her friend repeated. "Oh, always being with the same person," said Mary, with this explanation allowing the opportunity to pass. Daisy went back to her hunting; Mary remained in London. "We might go to Ventnor in March," said Lady Flower. "I don't feel inclined to travel far. I really believe that I'm beginning to feel old. I wish I could see you safely married. You strike me as being somewhat listless in your manner. That would vanish if you were married." Jemmie Alison ventured to think that Mary was not looking quite herself. He would have been glad to suggest the same remedy as Lady Flower; but he lacked the courage and compromised. "What you want is a dog," he decided. "A nice little dog. Give you an excuse for taking a walk every morning in the Park. I should like to think of you with your little dog under the trees when I'm working in my office." Jemmie Alison proved that he had faith in his prescription by taking a great deal of trouble to procure for Mary the very dog for the purpose--a wise Dandie Dinmont not so young as to require the elements of training, yet not so old as to be fretting for a former mistress or master. "He is called Mac. You don't dislike that name?" the donor asked. Mary said that she thought it was a most suitable name.