curtains showed a luncheon table placed against the wall, after the cheerful fashion of furnished apartments, when one room does duty for three, at which sat two little sailor-suited lads and a pale mother, smiling bravely at their sallies.

Margot felt the quick contraction of the heart which she experienced afresh at every sight of Edith’s changed face, but next moment she whistled softly in the familiar key, and saw the light flash back. Edith sprang to the door, and appeared flushed and smiling.

“Margot, how sweet of you! I am glad! Have you had lunch?”

“No. Give me anything you have. I’m awfully late. Bread and jam will do splendidly. Halloa, youngsters, how are you? We’ll defer kisses, I think, till you are past the sticky stage. I’ve been prowling about the Park for the last two hours enjoying the spring breezes, and working out problems, and suddenly discovered it was too late to go home.”

She sank down on a seat by the table, shaking her head in response to an anxious glance. “No, not my own affairs, dear; only Ron’s! Can’t the boys run away now, and let us have a chat? I know you have had enough of them by your face, and I’ve such a lot to say. Don’t grumble, boys! Be good, and you shall be happy, and your aunt will take you to the Zoo. Yes, I promise! The very first afternoon that the sun shines; but first I shall ask mother if you have deserved it by doing what you are told.”

“Run upstairs, dears, and wash, and put on your boots before Esther comes,” said Mrs Martin fondly; and the boys obeyed, with a lingering obedience which was plainly due rather to bribery than training.

The elder of the two was a sturdy, plain-featured lad, uninteresting except to the parental eye; the younger a beauty, a bewitching, plump, curly-headed cherub of four years, with widely-opened grey eyes and a Cupid’s bow of a mouth. Margot let Jim pass by with a nod, but her hand stretched out involuntarily to stroke Pat’s cheek, and ruffle his curly pow.

Edith smiled in sympathetic understanding, but even as she smiled she turned her head over her shoulder to speak a parting word to the older lad.

“Good-bye, darling! We’ll have a lovely game after tea!” Then the door shut, and she turned to her sister with a sigh.

“Poor Jim! everybody overlooks him to fuss over Pat, and it is hard lines. Children feel these things much more than grown-up people 

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