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mott expecting you back immediately?’ It was grievous to her, bitterly grievous, that she must ask leave to see Robin.

‘I’m sure he can come in for a little, Ma’am,’ said Nurse.

Fountains on a lawn, especially on a lawn as small as hers, were very distasteful to Monica, but the cement basin had already been made at the side of the house, where cook and Miriam could see it from the kitchen window, and already the pipes were laid and the sods with which the devastation was to be repaired, piled in readiness. ‘We can’t make the water play quite yet, I think,’ she said, leading Robin by the hand, ‘and there’s a good deal to do to it still, you see. We must have plants growing round the edge, and some more, perhaps, at the bottom, for the fish to hide in. It will all need consideration. But there’s plenty of time; we shan’t want to put them in till spring. I only wish we could tell them what is going to happen. It would make the winter pass more quickly for them.—It’s lovely looking forward to things, isn’t it?’

‘Yes; it will make the winter pass much more quickly for us, too, won’t it?’ He gazed down into the basin. ‘What are their names?’ he asked.