Mother laughed.  “That’s some of Sybylla’s nonsense.  She considers Rory her especial property, and delights to make the child attempt long words.  Perhaps you would care to take a stroll to where they are at work, by and by.”

Harold said he would go at once, and accepting Rory’s escort, and with a few directions from mother, they presently set out—­she importantly trudging beneath a big white sun-bonnet, and he looking down at her in amusement.  Presently he tossed her high above his head, and depositing her upon his shoulder, held one sturdy brown leg in his browner hand, while she held on by his hair.

“My first impressions are very much in his favour,” said mother, when they had got out of hearing.  “But fancy Gertie the wife of that great man!”

“She is four inches taller than I am,” I snapped.  “And if he was as big as a gum-tree, he would he a man all the same, and just as soft on a pretty face as all the rest of them.”

I bathed, dressed, arranged my hair, got something ready for tea, and prepared a room for our visitor.  For this I collected from all parts of the house—­a mat from one room, a toilet-set from another, and so on—­till I had quite an elaborately furnished chamber ready for my one-time lover.

They returned at dusk, Rory again seated on Harold’s shoulder, and two of the little boys clinging around him.

As I conducted him to his room I was in a different humour from that of the sweep-like object who had met him during the afternoon.  I laughed to myself, for, as on a former occasion during our acquaintance, I felt I was master of the situation.

“I say, Syb, don’t treat a fellow as though he was altogether a stranger,” he said diffidently, leaning against the door-post.

Our hands met in a cordial grasp as I said, “I’m awfully glad to see you, Hal; but, but—­”

“But what?”

I didn’t feel over delighted to be caught in such a stew this afternoon.”

“Nonsense!  It only reminded me of the first time we met,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.  “That’s always the way with you girls.  You can’t be civil to a man unless you’re dressed up fit to stun him, as though you couldn’t make fool enough of him without the aid of clothes at all.”

“You’d better shut up,” I said over my shoulder as I departed, 1dor you will be saying something better left unsaid, like at our first meeting.  Do you remember?”

“Do I not?  Great Scot, it’s just like old times to have you giving me impudence over your shoulder like that!” he replied merrily.

“Like, yet unlike,” I retorted with a sigh.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Once Upon a Time, when the days were long and hot