“I do not think much of them,” say I, disparagingly, kneeling down to examine them.  “What a villainous rose!  It is like an artichoke!”

“I told you you would not like them,” he says, not looking at the flowers, but switching a little stick nonchalantly about; then, after a moment:  “How long did you say you had been abroad?”

“You asked me that before,” reply I, sharply, rising from my knees, and discovering that the evening grass has left a disfiguring green trace on my smart trousseau gown.

“Yes, and you did not give me any answer,” he replies, with equal sharpness.

“Because I cannot for the life of me recollect,” reply I, looking up for inspiration to the stars, which the great bright lamps make look small and pale.  “I must do a sum:  what day of the month is this?—­the 31st?  Oh, thanks, so it is; and we were married on the 20th.  It is ten days, then.  Oh, it must be more—­it seems like ten months”

I am looking him full in the face as I say this, and I see a curious, and to me puzzling, expression of inquiry and laughter in the shady darkness of his eyes.

“Has the time seemed so long to you, then?”

“No,” reply I, reddening with vexation at my own betise; “that is—­ yes—­because we have been to so many places, and seen so many things—­ any one would understand that”

“And when do you go home?”

“In less than three weeks now,” I reply, in an alert, or rather joyful tone; “at least I hope so—­I mean” (again correcting myself)—­“I think so.”

Somehow I feel dissatisfied with my own explanations, and recommence: 

“The boys—­that is, my brothers—­will soon be scattered to the ends of the earth; Algy has got his commission, and Bobby will soon be sent to a foreign station—­he is in the navy, you will understand; and so we all want to be together once again before they go.”  “You are not going home really, then?” inquires my companion, with a slight shade of disappointment in his tone; “not to Tempest—­that is?”

“What a number of questions you do ask!” say I, impatiently.  “Of what possible interest can it be to you where we are going?”

“Only that I shall be your nearest neighbor,” replies he, stiffly; “and, as Sir Roger has hardly ever been down hitherto, I am rather tired of living next an empty house.”

“Our nearest neighbor!” cry I, with animation, opening my eyes.  “Not really? Well, I am rather glad!  Only yesterday I was asking Sir Roger whether there were many young people about.  And how near are you? Very near?”

“About as near as I well can be,” answers he, dryly.  “My lodge exactly faces yours.”

“Too close,” say I, shaking my head.  “We shall quarrel.”

“And do you mean to say,” in a tone of attempted lightness that but badly disguises a good deal of hurt conceit, “that you never heard my name before?”