crisp, faded pink dress, came around the corner.  In one hot hand she carried, by their heads, a bunch of lilac and pink and white sweet peas.  It cost her no trouble at all, and about half a minute of time, to charge the atmosphere, so full of sweet peace and rest, with a saturated solution of bitterness and disquiet.  Her presence alone was a bombshell, and with a sentence or two in her clear, innocent voice, the fell deed was done.  Fielding stopped smoking, his cigar in mid-air, and stared with a scowl at the child; but Eleanor, delighted to have found the Bishop, saw only him.  A shower of crushed blossoms fell over his knees.

“I ran away from Aunt Basha.  I brought you a posy for ‘Good-mornin’,’” she said.  The Bishop, collecting the plunder, expressed gratitude.  “Dick picked a whole lot for Madge, and then they went walkin’ and forgot ’em.  Isn’t Dick funny?” she went on.

Mr. Fielding looked as if Dick’s drollness did not appeal to him, but the Bishop laughed, and put his arm around her.

“Will you give me a kiss, too, for ‘Good-morning,’” he said; and then, “That’s better than the flowers.  You had better run back to Aunt Basha now, Eleanor—­she’ll be frightened.”

Eleanor looked disappointed, “I wanted to ask you ’bout what dead chickens gets to be, if they’re good.  Pups?  Do you reckon it’s pups?”

The theory of transmigration of souls had taken strong hold.  Mr. Fielding lost his scowl in a look of bewilderment, and the Bishop frankly shouted out a big laugh.

“Listen, Eleanor.  This afternoon I’ll come for you to walk, and we’ll talk that all over.  Go home now, my lamb.”  And Eleanor, like a pale-pink over-sized butterfly, went.

“Do you know that child, Jim?” Mr. Fielding asked, grimly.

“Yes,” answered the Bishop, with a serene pull at his cigar.

“Do you know she’s the child of that good-for-nothing Fairfax Preston, who married Eleanor Gray against her people’s will and took her South to—­to—­starve, practically?”

The Bishop drew a long breath, and then he turned and looked at his old friend with a clear, wide gaze.  “She’s Eleanor Gray’s child, too, Dick,” he said.

Mr. Fielding was silent a moment.  “Has the boy talked to you?” he asked.  The Bishop nodded.  “It’s the worst trouble I’ve ever had.  It would kill me to see him marry that man’s daughter.  I can’t and won’t resign myself to it.  Why should I?  Why should Dick choose, out of all the world, the one girl in it who would be insufferable to me.  I can’t give in about this.  Much as Dick is to me I’ll let him go sooner.  I hope you’ll see I’m right, Jim, but right or wrong, I’ve made up my mind.”

The Bishop stretched a large, bony hand across the little table that stood between them.  Fielding’s fell on it.  Both men smoked silently for a minute.

“Have you anything against the girl, Dick?” asked the Bishop, presently.