“Floss tells me you’re about at the end of your rope—­what?” said Gardner.  “Clarence is the limit, of course, but don’t be too much in a hurry, old girl.  We’d be—­we’d be awfully sorry to have you come to a smash, don’t you know—­now!”

Thus Gardner.  Rachael gave him a glimmering smile in the early dusk.

“Not much fun for me, Gardner,” she said gravely.

“Sure it’s not,” Gardner answered, clearing his throat tremendously.  Neither spoke again until Florence came down, but later, in all honesty, he told his wife that he had pitched into Rachael no end, and she had agreed to go slow.

Florence, however, was not satisfied with so brief a campaign.  She and Rachael did not speak of the topic again until the last afternoon of Rachael’s stay.  Then the visitor, coming innocently downstairs at tea time, was a little confused to see that besides Mrs. Bowditch and her oldest daughter, and old Mrs. Torrence, the Bishop and Mrs. Thomas were calling.  Instantly she suspected a trap.

“Rachael, dear,” Florence said sweetly, when the greetings were over, “will you take the bishop down to look at the sundial?  I’ve been boasting about it.”

“You sound like a play, Florence,” her sister-in-law said with a little nervous laugh. “‘Exit Rachael and Bishop, L.’  Surely you’ve seen the sundial, Bishop?”

“I had such a brief glimpse of it on the day of the tea,” Bishop Thomas said pleasantly, “that I feel as if I must have another look at that inscription!” Smiling and benign, rather impressive in his clerical black, the clergyman got to his feet, and turned an inviting smile to Rachael.

“Shall I take you down, Bishop?” Charlotte asked, her eagerness to be socially useful fading into sick apprehension at her mother’s look.

“No, I’ll go!” Rachael ended the little scene by catching up her wide hat.  “Come on, Bishop,” she said courageously, adding, as soon as they were out of hearing, “and if you’re going to be dreadful, begin this moment!”

“And why, pray, should I be dreadful?” the bishop asked, smiling reproachfully.  “Am I usually so dreadful?  I don’t believe it would be possible, among these lovely roses”—­he drew in a great breath of the sweet afternoon air—­“and with such a wonderful sunset telling us to lift up our hearts.”  And sauntering contentedly along, the bishop gave her an encouraging smile, but as Rachael continued to walk beside him without raising her eyes, presently he added, whimsically:  “Would it be dreadful, Mrs. Breckenridge, if one saw a heedless little child—­oh, a sweet and dear, but a heedless little child—­going too near the cliffs—­would it be dreadful to say:  ’Look out, little child!  There’s a terrible fall there, and the water’s cold and dark.  Be careful!’” The bishop sat down on the carved stone bench that had been set in the circle of shrubs that surrounded the sundial, and Rachael sat down, too.

“Well, what about the child?” he persisted, when there had been a silence.