“Here we killed on the seventeenth of January last,” said Raymond’s host.  “A fine finish to a grand run.  We rolled him over on this very spot after forty-five minutes of the best.  It is always good to remember great moments in the past.”

On the southern slope of North Hill there stood a ruined lime-kiln whose walls were full of fern and coated with mother o’ thyme.  A bank of brier and nettles lay before the mouth.  They hid the foot of the kiln and made a snug and secluded spot.  Bridetown clustered in its elms far below; then the land rose again to protect the hamlet from the south; and beyond stretched the blue line of the Channel.

The men sat here and smoked, while Estelle hunted for flowers and feathers.

She came back to them presently with a bee orchis.  “For you,” she said, and gave it to Raymond.  “What the dickens is it?” he asked, and she told him.  “They’re rather rare, but they live happily on the down in some places.  I know where.”  He thanked her very much.

“Never seen one before,” he said.  “A funny little pink and black devil, isn’t it?”

“It isn’t a devil,” she assured him; “if anything, it’s an angel.  But really it’s more like a small bumble-bee than anything.  Perhaps you’ve never seen a bumble-bee either?”

“Oh, yes, I have—­they don’t sting.”  Estelle laughed.

“I thought that once.  A boy in the village told me that bumble-bees have ‘got no spears.’  And I believed him and tried to help one out of the window once.  And I very soon found that he had got a spear.”

“That reminds me I must take a wasps’ nest to-night,” said her father.  “I’ve not decided which way to take it yet.  There are seven different ways to take a wasps’ nest—­all good.”

They strolled homeward presently and parted at the lodge of North Hill House.

“You must come down and choose your room soon,” said Estelle.  “It must be one that gets the sun in it, and the moon.  People always want the sun, but they never seem to want the moon.”

“Don’t they, Estelle!  I know lots of people who want the moon,” declared Raymond.  “Perhaps I do.”

“You can have your choice of four stalls for the horse,” said Arthur Waldron.  “I always ride before breakfast myself, wet or fine.  Only frost stops me.  I hope you will too—­before you go to the works.”

Raymond was soon at ‘The Magnolias,’ and found Mr. Churchouse expecting him in the garden.  They had not met since Henry Ironsyde’s death, but the elder, familiar with the situation, did not speak of Raymond’s father.

He was anxious to learn the young man’s decision, and proved too ingenuous to conceal his relief when the visitor explained his plans.

“I felt it my duty to offer you a temporary home,” he said, “and we should have done our best to make you comfortable, but one gets into one’s routine and I won’t disguise from you that I am glad you go to North Hill House, Raymond.”