“She has gone away rocking her arms,” she said to Tommy.

“No,” he replied.  “I can hear her.  She is singing because you are so happy.”

“She never knew how to sing.”

“She has learned suddenly.  Everybody can sing who has anything to sing about.  And do you know what she said about your dear wet eyes, Grizel?  She said they were just sweet.  And do you know why she left us so suddenly?  She ran home gleefully to stitch and dust and beat carpets, and get baths ready, and look after the affairs of everybody, which she is sure must be going to rack and ruin because she has been away for half an hour!”

At his words there sparkled in her face the fond delight with which a woman assures herself that the beloved one knows her little weaknesses, for she does not truly love unless she thirsts to have him understand the whole of her, and to love her in spite of the foibles and for them.  If he does not love you a little for the foibles, madam, God help you from the day of the wedding.

But though Grizel was pleased, she was not to be cajoled.  She wandered with him through the Den, stopping at the Lair, and the Queen’s Bower, and many other places where the little girl used to watch Tommy suspiciously; and she called, half merrily, half plaintively:  “Are you there, you foolish girl, and are you wringing your hands over me?  I believe you are jealous because I love him best.”

“We have loved each other so long, she and I,” she said apologetically to Tommy.  “Ah,” she said impulsively, when he seemed to be hurt, “don’t you see it is because she doubts you that I am so sorry for the poor thing!”

“Dearest, darlingest,” she called to the child she had been, “don’t think that you can come to me when he is away, and whisper things against him to me.  Do you think I will listen to your croakings, you poor, wet-faced thing!”

“You child!” said Tommy.

“Do you think me a child because I blow kisses to her?”

“Do you like me to think you one?” he replied.

“I like you to call me child,” she said, “but not to think me one.”

“Then I shall think you one,” said he, triumphantly.  He was so perfect an instrument for love to play upon that he let it play on and on, and listened in a fever of delight.  How could Grizel have doubted Tommy?  The god of love himself would have sworn that there were a score of arrows in him.  He wanted to tell Elspeth and the others at once that he and Grizel were engaged.  I am glad to remember that it was he who urged this, and Grizel who insisted on its being deferred.  He even pretended to believe that Elspeth would exult in the news; but Grizel smiled at him for saying this to please her.  She had never been a great friend of Elspeth’s, they were so dissimilar; and she blamed herself for it now, and said she wanted to try to make Elspeth love her before they told her.  Tommy begged her to let him tell his sister at once;