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goldfish,’ he whispered, turning up to her a face Clive’s to exactitude in its wistful archness. She stooped and kissed the starry forehead. She felt her love passionately flow over the little boy, sweeping him and Clive together in its tide, the past and the present. ‘Much prettier than a whale and much easier to take care of,’ she said.

‘Could you take care of a whale?’ Robin questioned, still with the archness that showed his recognition of fairyland and its code.

‘Not very well in here;—but you might in the garden — on such a rainy day as this the poor thing would hardly miss the sea!’ laughed Monica.

‘But I like these better. There are no whales at the Zoo. There wouldn’t be room for them.—They’d reach out into the lane if they were in the garden, Grannie; you couldn’t keep them there.’ And as, absorbed now in reality he stood beside her, he added: ‘Don’t you think they have dear little faces? They look so happy as they go round and round and they open and shut their mouths as though they were singing.’

‘If you ask me, I always think they are melancholy mad, said Hester’s voice, devastatingly. She had come to the steps and stood there above them, her cigarette in her hand, looking down. ‘I