“Thank you,” he said, turning to Lettie, who sat with her lap full of work, her head busily bent. “You see I can’t get up,” she said, giving him her hand, adorned as it was by the thimble. “How nice of you to come! We did not know you were back.” “But!” he exclaimed, then he stopped. “I suppose you enjoyed yourself,” she went on calmly. “Immensely, thanks.” Snap, snap, snap went her needle through the new stuff. Then, without looking up, she said: “Yes, no doubt. You have the air of a man who has been enjoying himself.” “How do you mean?” “A kind of guilty—or shall I say embarrassed—look. Don’t you notice it mother?” “I do!” said my mother. “I suppose it means we may not ask him questions,” Lettie concluded, always very busily sewing. He laughed. She had broken her cotton, and was trying to thread the needle again. “What have you been doing this miserable weather?” he enquired awkwardly. “Oh, we have sat at home desolate. ‘Ever of thee I’m fo-o-ondly dreēaming’—and so on. Haven’t we mother?” “Well,” said mother, “I don’t know. We imagined him all sorts of lions up there.” “What a shame we may not ask him to roar his old roars over for us,” said Lettie. “What are they like?” he asked. “How should I know? Like a sucking dove, to judge from your present voice. ‘A monstrous little voice.’” He laughed uncomfortably. She went on sewing, suddenly beginning to sing to herself: “Pussy cat, Pussy cat, where have you been? I’ve been up to London to see the fine queen: Pussy cat, Pussy cat, what did you there—— I frightened a little mouse under a stair.” “I suppose,” she added, “that may be so. Poor mouse!—but I guess she’s none the worse. You did not see the queen, though?” “She was not in London,” he replied sarcastically. “You don’t——” she said, taking two pins from between her teeth. “I suppose you don’t mean by that, she was in Eberwich—your queen?” “I don’t know where she was,” he answered angrily. “Oh!” she said, very sweetly, “I thought perhaps you had met her in Eberwich. When did you come back?” “Last night,” he replied. “Oh—why didn’t you come and see us before?” “I’ve been at the offices all day.” “I’ve been up to Eberwich,” she said innocently. “Have you?” “Yes. And I feel so cross because of it. I thought I might see you. I felt as if you were at home.” She stitched a little, and glanced up secretly to watch his face redden, then she continued innocently, “Yes—I felt you had come back. It is funny how one has a feeling occasionally that someone is near; when it is someone one has a sympathy with.” She continued to stitch, then she took a pin from her bosom, and fixed her work, all without the least suspicion of guile. “I thought I might meet you when I was out——” another pause, another fixing, a pin to be taken from her lips—” but I didn’t.” “I was at the office till rather late,” he said quickly. She stitched away calmly, provokingly.