The pink sunbonnet was very near the dark head; both were bending over a book on Doria’s knee—­Les Malheurs de Sophie, which Susan, proud of her French scholarship, had proposed to read to Doria, who having just returned from France was supposed to be the latest authority on the language.  I noticed that the severity of this intellectual communion was mitigated by Susan’s favourite black kitten, who, sitting on its little haunches, seemed to be turning over pages rather rapidly.  Then all of a sudden, from nowhere in particular, there stepped into the landscape (framed, you must remember, by the jambs of my door) a huge and familiar figure, carrying a great suit-case.  He put this on the ground, rushed up to Doria, shook her by both hands, swung Susan in the air and kissed her, and was still laughing and making the welkin ring—­that is to say, making a thundering noise—­when I, having sped across the lawn, joined the group.

“Hello!” said I, “how did you get here?”

“Walked from the station,” said Jaffery.  “Came down by an earlier train.  No good staying in town on such a morning.  Besides—­” He glanced at Doria in significant aposiopesis.

“And you lugged that infernal thing a mile and a half?” I asked, pointing to the suit-case, which must have weighed half a ton.  “Why didn’t you leave it to be called for?”

“This?  This little sachet?” He lifted it up by one finger and grinned.

Susan regarded the feat, awe-stricken.  “Oh, Uncle Jaff, you are strong!”

Doria smiled at him admiringly and declared she couldn’t lift the thing an inch from the ground with both her hands.

“Do you know,” she laughed, “when he used to carry me about, I felt as if I had been picked up by an iron crane.”

Jaffery beamed with delight.  He was just a little vain of his physical strength.  A colleague of his once told me that he had seen Jaffery in a nasty row in Caracas during a revolution, bend from his saddle and wrench up two murderous villains by the armpits, one in each hand, and dash their heads together over his horse’s neck.  But that is the sort of story that Jaffery himself never told.

Barbara, who, flitting about the house on domestic duty, had caught sight of him through a window, came out to greet him.

“Isn’t it glorious to have her back?” he cried, waving his great hand towards Doria.  “And looking so bonny.  Nothing like the South.  The sunshine gets into your blood.  By Jove! what a difference, eh?  Remember when we started for Nice?”

He stood, legs apart and hands on hips, looking down on her with as much pride as if he had wrought the miracle himself.

“Get some more chairs, dear,” said Barbara.

By good fortune seeing one of the gardeners in the near distance, I hailed him and shouted the necessary orders.  That is the one disadvantage of summer:  during the whole of that otherwise happy season, Barbara expects me to be something between a scene-shifter and a Furniture Removing Van.