“Five.—­’To Mrs. M. of M.,’” continued Valentine.  “It seems to be a song:—­

     “’Oh, clear as candles newly snuffed
     Are those round orbs of thine.’”

“It’s false,” exclaimed Crayshaw; “Mrs. Melcombe indeed!  She’s fat, she’s three times too old for me.”

“Why did you write it, then?” persisted Valentine.  “I think this line,—­

     “‘Lovely as waxwork is thy brow,’

“does you great credit.  But what avails it!  She is now another’s.  I got her wedding cards this morning.  She is married to one Josiah Fothergill, and he lives in Warwick Square.

“Six—­’The Black Eye, a Study from Life.’”

“But their things are not all fun, cousin Val,” said Gladys, observing, not without pleasure, that Crayshaw was a little put out at Valentine’s joke about Mrs. Melcombe.  “Cray is going to be a real poet now, and some of his things are very serious indeed.”

“This looks very serious,” Valentine broke in; “perhaps it is one of them:  ‘Thoughts on Futurity, coupling with it the name of my Whiskers,’”

“There’s his ode to Sincerity,” proceeded Gladys; “I am sure you would like that.”

“For we tell so many stories, you know,” remarked Barbara; “say so many things that we don’t mean.  Cray thinks we ought not.”

“For instance,” said Johnnie, “sometimes when people write that they are coming to see us, we answer that we are delighted, when in reality we wish that they were at the bottom of the sea.”

“No, no,” answered Valentine, in a deprecatory tone; “don’t say at the bottom, that sounds unkind.  I’m sure I never wished anybody more than half-way down.”

Two or three days after this a grand early dinner took place at Melcombe.  All the small Mortimers were present, and a number of remarkable keepsakes were bestowed afterwards on Crayshaw by way of dessert.  After this, while Mr. and Mrs. John Mortimer sat together in the house the party adjourned to the orchard, and Crayshaw presently appeared with a small box in which had hitherto been concealed his own gifts of like nature.  Among them were two gold lockets, one for each of the twins.

“I helped him to choose them,” said Johnnie, “and he borrowed the money of his brother.”

“There’s nothing in them,” observed Barbara.  “It would be much more romantic if we put in a lock of Cray’s hair.”

“I thought of that,” quoth the donor, “but I knew very well that the first new friend you had, you would turn it out and put his in, just as both of you turned my photograph out of those pretty frames, and put in Prince Leopold after he had passed through the town.  You are to wear these lockets.”

“Oh yes,” said Barbara, “and how pretty they are with their little gold chains!”

“Cray, if you will give me a lock of your hair, I promise not to take it out,” said Gladys.

She produced a little pair of scissors, and as he sat at her feet, cut off a small curl, and between them they put it in.  A certain wistfulness was in her youthful face, but no one noticed it.