house.

"Don't answer me to-day, Amaryllis," he said, "but just turn me and it over in your mind now and then between this and Friday."

CHAPTER III.

"HUMMIN' BIRD'S WESKIT."

At a quarter past two that afternoon, Amaryllis, with her bull-dog, set out for a walk.

Her father was in the laboratory, ostensibly at work, and Sir Randal, beaming expectant, had driven off to St. Albans.

Tea-time, or even dinner was early enough, thought Amaryllis, to meet the new-comer; and then, in spite of the mixture of bewilderment, pride and regret which oppressed her, she remembered the words of the American in the Cape Town bar: "Eyes blue as a hummin' bird's weskit."

"How absurd!" she exclaimed, laughing to herself.

Then she sighed, and was quite sure she really wanted to be alone, and set herself, as she strolled down through the hazel copse towards the London road, to think seriously of Randal Bellamy and his offer.

But the trouble was that Miss Caldegard had never seen a humming bird, and therefore found herself brooding on the blueness of all the blue things in her experience, from willow-pattern china to the waters of the Mediterranean, instead of considering the answer which she must give to Randal on Friday.

A quarter of a mile of winding path led her downward to the level of the road. When she reached the stile, her thought was still far from the matter she had promised to consider.

She turned to call her dog, and, knowing his insatiable curiosity, was less surprised than annoyed to find that she had let him stray. She could not remember whether she had last seen him behind her, in front, or blundering through the undergrowth, still confident, in spite of perpetual disappointment, in his power to overtake a rabbit.

Now the dog's temper, admirable with his friends, was uncertain with strangers, and Amaryllis was accustomed to keep him close at heel in public places. So, having whistled and called in vain, she crossed the stile and looked down the road towards Iddingfield.

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