Major Durward laughed with indulgent amusement.

“What an absurd lady you are still, Beth!” he exclaimed, his honest face beaming adoration.  “No one would take you to be the mother of a grown-up son!”

“Wouldn’t they?” For a moment Elisabeth’s eyes—­veiled, enigmatical as ever—­rested on Tim’s distant figure, where he stood deep in the discussion of some knotty point with the head gardener.  Then they came back to her husband’s face, and she laughed lightly.  “Everybody doesn’t see me through the rose-coloured spectacles that you do, dearest.”

“There are no ‘rose-coloured spectacles’ about it,” protested Geoffrey energetically.  “No one on earth would take you for a day more than thirty—­if it weren’t for the solid fact of Tim’s six feet of bone and muscle!”

Elisabeth jumped up and kissed her husband impulsively.

“Geoffrey, you’re a great dear,” she declared warmly.  “Now I must run off and tell Fanchette to pack my things.”

So it came about that on the following Tuesday, Sara, to her astonishment and delight, received a letter from Elisabeth announcing her arrival at the Cliff Hotel.

“Why, Elisabeth is already here!” she exclaimed, addressing the family at Sunnyside collectively.  “She came last night.”

Selwyn looked up from his correspondence with a kindly smile.

“That’s good.  You will be able, after all, to bring off the projected meeting between Mrs. Durward and your hermit—­who, by the way, seems to have deserted his shell nowadays,” he added, twinkling.

And Sara, blissfully unaware that in this instance Elisabeth had abrogated to herself the rights of destiny, responded smilingly—­

“Yes.  Fate has actually arranged things quite satisfactorily for once.”

Half an hour later she presented herself at the Cliff Hotel, and was conducted upstairs to Mrs. Durward’s sitting-room on the first floor.

Elisabeth welcomed her with all her wonted charm and sweetness.  There was a shade of gravity in her manner as she spoke of Sara’s engagement, but no hint of annoyance.  She dwelt solely on Tim’s disappointment and her own, exhibiting no bitterness, but only a rather wistful regret that another had succeeded where Tim had failed.

“And now,” she said, drawing Sara out on to the balcony, where she had been sitting prior to the latter’s arrival, “and now, tell me about the lucky man.”

Sara found it a little difficult to describe the man she loved to the mother of the man she didn’t love, but finally, by dint of skilful questioning, Elisabeth elicited the information she sought.

“Forty-three!” she exclaimed, as Sara vouchsafed his age.  “But that’s much too old for you, my dear!”

Sara shook her head.

“Not a bit,” she smiled back.

“It seems so to me,” persisted Elisabeth, regarding her with judicial eyes.  “Somehow you convey such an impression of youth.  You always remind me of spring.  You are so slim and straight and vital—­like a young sapling.  However, perhaps Mr. Trent also has the faculty of youth.  Youth isn’t a matter of years, after all,” she added contemplatively.