The last two days of his stay the weather changed.  Sudden heat burst forth, as it does occasionally for a few hours even in our chilly English spring.  The grey-brown bushes and trees started almost with visible progress into the tender green shade which is the forerunner of the bursting leaves.  The sky was of full cloudless blue.  Mr. Wilkins was to come home pretty early from the office to ride out with his daughter and her lover; but, after waiting some time for him, it grew too late, and they were obliged to give up the project.  Nothing would serve Ellinor, then, but that she must carry out a table and have tea in the garden, on the sunny side of the tree, among the roots of which she used to play when a child.  Miss Monro objected a little to this caprice of Ellinor’s, saying that it was too early for out-of-door meals; but Mr. Corbet overruled all objections, and helped her in her gay preparations.  She always kept to the early hours of her childhood, although she, as then, regularly sat with her father at his late dinner; and this meal al fresco was to be a reality to her and Miss Monro.  There was a place arranged for her father, and she seized upon him as he was coming from the stable-yard, by the shrubbery path, to his study, and with merry playfulness made him a prisoner, accusing him of disappointing them of their ride, and drawing him more than half unwilling, to his chair by the table.  But he was silent, and almost sad:  his presence damped them all; they could hardly tell why, for he did not object to anything, though he seemed to enjoy nothing, and only to force a smile at Ellinor’s occasional sallies.  These became more and more rare as she perceived her father’s depression.  She watched him anxiously.  He perceived it, and said—­shivering in that strange unaccountable manner which is popularly explained by the expression that some one is passing over the earth that will one day form your grave—­“Ellinor! this is not a day for out-of-door tea.  I never felt so chilly a spot in my life.  I cannot keep from shaking where I sit.  I must leave this place, my dear, in spite of all your good tea.”

“Oh, papa!  I am so sorry.  But look how full that hot sun’s rays come on this turf.  I thought I had chosen such a capital spot!”

But he got up and persisted in leaving the table, although he was evidently sorry to spoil the little party.  He walked up and down the gravel walk, close by them, talking to them as he kept passing by and trying to cheer them up.

“Are you warmer now, papa?” asked Ellinor.

“Oh, yes!  All right.  It’s only that place that seems so chilly and damp.  I’m as warm as a toast now.”

The next morning Mr. Corbet left them.  The unseasonably fine weather passed away too, and all things went back to their rather grey and dreary aspect; but Ellinor was too happy to feel this much, knowing what absent love existed for her alone, and from this knowledge unconsciously trusting in the sun behind the clouds.