I realise that this was hardly a story for a little girl of six or seven; a tale of disillusionment, rather; of use in discouraging the ambitious,--if the ambitious trouble themselves about the poets--teaching the beauty of a humble lot in an age when every one is envious of his neighbour and eager to push himself into the foreground. But a whole flood of questions and comments from Dilette explained and embellished it. _What is an outskirt_? _A thatched cottage_? _An horizon_? _A doctor who does not understand sickness_? _etc._-- I admit, too, that the ending is sad enough, and that when Dilette demanded some changes, in particular a happier conclusion, I should have been willing to revive my heroine, if the angry man who intervened had given me time. I admit whatever you wish. But certainly all this did not warrant the scolding I received from Raymond Cernay, who had crept silently behind the cloister wall, and now sprang up so abruptly that he both frightened and shocked us. “Leave that child alone, if you please!” I am telling the exact truth: he spoke to me thus rudely. In a second I was on my feet, angry, and my face crimson. My first words challenged him without regard for politeness. Now I ask you whether any man has a right to behave in this way to a person who is taking enough interest in his progeny to sit on top of a wall and teach her English ballads. Dilette, herself, although she did not dare say anything, suffered from the paternal injustice. Such a lack of courtesy, she realised, was not likely to help our future relations. Cernay turned to his daughter. “Go find your grandfather and say good-night to this gentleman who has been trying to entertain you.” This pacified me somewhat, and still more the gracious good-night that Dilette purposely emphasised. When the child had gone, Cernay appeared to hesitate over his course; then he resolutely commenced a strange catechism, to which, I confess, I submitted with a bad grace, for his ridiculous injunction still rang in my ears. “How do you know what happened?” he began. “What do you mean?” I retorted. “What happened in my home. Who told you?” “I do not understand,” I answered. “You understand very well--but the heroine of your story did not die as you said. Her husband killed her. Her husband, do you understand? But of course you know that--only you did not want to say so to my little girl. You were very wise--I was there, I heard every word--and I should not have allowed you to go on. One does not talk to a child about her mother’s unhappiness.” My anger left me. Cernay was evidently crazy. He had suddenly imagined that he was Lord Burleigh. His experiments in aviation, which taxed too heavily his daring and presence of mind, possibly also, his disappointment and isolation, had unsettled his mind. In order not to provoke him, I decided to humour him. “Follow me,” he commanded imperiously.