the toil of keeping hope alive till the coming of spring, hung dejected heads in the sunk garden, where the hornbeam hedge that carried its russet leaves unfallen, shaded them from the wind.  Here, too, a few bulbs had pricked their way above ground, and stood with stout, erect horns daintily capped with rime.  All these things, which for years had been presented to Lady Ashbridge’s notice without attracting her attention; now filled her with minute childlike pleasure; they were discoveries as entrancing and as magical as the first finding of the oval pieces of blue sky that a child sees one morning in a hedge-sparrow’s nest.  Now that she was alone with her son, all her secret restlessness and anxiety had vanished, and she remarked almost with glee that her husband had telephoned from the golf links to say that he would not be back for lunch; then, remembering that Michael had gone to talk to his father after breakfast, she asked him about the interview.

Michael had already made up his mind as to what to say here.  Knowing that his father was anxious about her, he felt it highly unlikely that he would tell her anything to distress her, and so he represented the interview as having gone off in perfect amity.  Later in the day, on his father’s return, he had made up his mind to propose a truce between them, as far as his mother was concerned.  Whether that would be accepted or not he could not certainly tell, but in the interval there was nothing to be gained by grieving her.

A great weight was lifted off her mind.

“Ah, my dear, that is good,” she said.  “I was anxious.  So now perhaps we shall have a peaceful Christmas.  I am glad your Aunt Barbara and Francis are coming, for though your aunt always laughs at your father, she does it kindly, does she not?  And as for Francis—­my dear, if God had given me two sons, I should have liked the other to be like Francis.  And shall we walk a little farther this way, and see poor Petsy’s grave?”

Petsy’s grave proved rather agitating.  There were doleful little stories of the last days to be related, and Petsy II. was tiresome, and insisted on defying the world generally with shrill barkings from the top of the small mound, conscious perhaps that his helpless predecessor slept below.  Then their walk brought them to the band of trees that separated the links from the house, from which Lady Ashbridge retreated, fearful, as she vaguely phrased it, “of being seen,” and by whom there was no need for her to explain.  Then across the field came a group of children scampering home from school.  They ceased their shouting and their games as the others came near, and demurely curtsied and took off their caps to Lady Ashbridge.

“Nice, well-behaved children,” said she.  “A merry Christmas to you all.  I hope you are all good children to your mothers, as my son is to me.”

She pressed his arm, nodded and smiled at the children, and walked on with him.  And Michael felt the lump in his throat.