The weather made it possible to spread the children’s tea in the open air.  At four o’clock Letty came, and was quietly happy in being allowed to superintend one of the tables.  Adela was already on affectionate terms with many of the little ones, though others regarded her with awe rather than warmth of confidence.  This was strange, when we remember how childlike she had formerly been with children.  But herein, too, there was a change; she could not now have caught up Letty’s little sister and trotted with her about the garden as she was used to do.  She could no longer smile in the old simple, endearing way; it took some time before a child got accustomed to her eyes and lips.  Her movements, though graceful as ever, were subdued to matronly gravity; never again would Adela turn and run down the hill, as after that meeting with Hubert Eldon.  But her sweetness was in the end irresistible to all who came within the circle of its magic.  You saw its influence in Letty, whose eyes seemed never at rest save when they were watching Adela, who sprang to her side with delight if the faintest sign did but summon her.  You saw its influence, moreover, when, the tea over, the children ranged themselves on the lawn to hear her read.  After the first few sentences, everywhere was profoundest attention; the music of her sweetly modulated voice, the art which she learnt only from nature, so allied themselves with the beauty of the pages she read that from beginning to end not a movement interrupted her.

Whilst she was reading a visitor presented himself at the Manor, and asked if Mrs. Mutimer was at home.  The servant explained how and where Mrs. Mutimer was engaged, for the party was held in a quarter of the garden hidden from the approach to the front door.

‘Is Miss Mutimer within?’ was the visitor’s next inquiry.

Receiving an affirmative reply, he begged that Miss Mutimer might be informed of Mr. Keene’s desire to see her.  And Mr. Keene was led to the drawing-room.

Alice was reposing on a couch; she did not trouble herself to rise when the visitor entered, but held a hand to him, at the same time scarcely suppressing a yawn.  Novel reading has a tendency to produce this expression of weariness.  Then she smiled, as one does in greeting an old acquaintance.

‘Who ever would have expected to see you!’ she began, drawing away her hand when it seemed to her that Mr. Keene had detained it quite long enough.  ‘Does Dick expect you?’

‘Your brother does not expect me, Miss Mutimer,’ Keene replied.  He invariably began conversation with her in a severely formal and respectful tone, and to-day there was melancholy in his voice.

‘You’ve just come on your own—­because you thought you would?’

’I have come because I could not help it, Miss Mutimer.  It is more than a month since I had the happiness of seeing you.’

He stood by the couch, his body bent in deference, his eyes regarding her with melancholy homage.