heather and Orlando, her dog, was near. The Atlantic, a little way off, was misty; it was the blue scarf of a laughing girl! In a swimming ecstasy of color stood the great hills, steeped in wild flowers. The trout stream, tripping over bowlders, sang its clear, small song.

Jane had a spotless silk shirt that opened deeply at the throat, and her blond skin was burned. Robert left off cleaning fish and, gingerly keeping his hands from the whiteness of her, set his mouth on that sun-baked throat. She drifted her head back and softly, with little rapt chuckles, they laughed-while it lasted!

Orlando had a bone. He left it. He came to Jane, looking reflective, uneasy, and, almost timidly, he kissed her hand, then went away.

Robert returned to cleaning fish and she said: "Orlando is jealous; he hates you to kiss me. It confuses him.”

"By Jove! He's got to get used to it. Why, he's gone. What's happened to him?"

"Taken his bone a little way off. Up there." She jerked her head.

Orlando had stretched himself upon a bowlder. He was worrying not only his bone, but this vexing topic of a permanent rival. If Orlando could have put it into human language, he would have said that Robert was a good fellow "in his place." His attitude toward Robert was identical with Robert's attitude toward him!

"You see"-Jane, dropping back into the delicious heather, watched her bridegroom cleaning fish he had caught "I've had him since he was a puppy, so big" she moved her hands. "I found him on the highroad, just squalling with terror. A tiny baby dog, who couldn't walk, but only straddled, in a vast world, all by himself. Nobody seemed to know where he came from and nobody wanted him. I asked lots of persons about him. So I took him home and I've had him ever since. I've told you all this lots of times. And now Orlando is seven years old-middle-aged. I do wish that dogs

lived forever-or as long as we do. But already he is getting a bit blind."

"I'm not surprised nobody wanted him." Robert glanced with easy affection toward the bowlder. "He's every sort of mongrel, darling."

"But-Robert-he's got a lovely coat and wonderful eyes, and somebody said the other day that he was really rather like a bull terrier."

"He's got the strength of one. That dog's all bone and muscle. I pity the chap he tackles."

"Fight! He's as gentle as a lamb."

"Let anybody interfere with you, and then see! But as to being a bull terrier! My dearest girl, several other breeds are concerned in Orlando's evolution. And what a name! Why, it isn't a dog's name."

"What is a dog's name?" She asked him this and looked at him through halfclosed eyes-that glance provocative, delicious! Then she added: "I called him Orlando because he had such a mournful face. He seemed to know he was a mongrel, and-Robert-I do want you to love him.”

"Love Orlando! Why he's the apple of my eye." Then he laughed, left off cleaning fish, and kissed her again.

Orlando lumbered up and watched the caress. He appeared puzzled, yet too loyal to be pained. She was happy, so it must be all right. it must be all right. No need to interfere.

Jane flung out one arm; she half twisted round in the heather. Robert watched idolatrously. He had not yetafter six months' honeymoon-learned the total wonder of her.

"Come along, Orlando. After all, it is your honeymoon, too," she said.

The dog squatted down, made himself comfortable in a fold of her hairy, tweed skirt, and his eyes remained fixed on her with that doggy glance. . . .

Robert, flipping his silvery fish up and down in the water, explained: "His eyes are insisting that you are the most adorable thing on earth. I agree."

The clumsy white dog slept, her arm

his tongue lolled out, he grinned absurdly. Jane had gray eyes, that could be blue in rapt moments. Her lids were large and very white.

Before they went into the cottage they stopped to look at the garden and poke fun at it. The garden was about the size of a big sheet, just a patch roughly fenced off from the prevalent moor.

She at times when he was writing business letters-had amused herself by digging. She had made a shallow trench and sowed peas. Robert, breaking off from writing letters, used to sneak, in a

"S'pose not. Yet why remind me? I do wish, Jane, that women were as sentimental as men."

"They never are," she admitted, lightly. "And in the autumn, anyway, we must go back."

Their eyes met with a daring tenderness, and, turning pinker, she proceeded:

"And you wouldn't like this place in wintertime. Mist on the moor; a dirty, troubled sea-moaning, threatening; water running down the walls of our cottage"

"Do stop, Jane, my dear. I'd love it anyhow-with you. This sort of life is utter magic. Surely you see?"

"Of course, I see. It is so wonderful that—often-I feel like crying with the sweetness of it. And I feel afraidalmost."

"Afraid of what?"

"That it won't-can't-last, that something must happen, that something will get taken away. It is all too good to be true."

"Take the good while it is true, darling. That's my advice."

"Best advice in the world-secret of living." She jumped up. "Is that fish finished? Why, you've done it beautifully. Let's take it to the cottage and I'll cook it."

They went across the breathless, sunladen moor in the hum of insects, in the song of birds. His arm was round her waist; the mongrel was at her heels,

VOL. CXLIV.-No. 861.-39

watch the big girl digging, her pale hair loosened, the white dog sitting close. Whenever she spoke to him he fluttered the tip of his tail, a movement too featherlike to be called a wag. Nine times out of ten Robert would rush out and briefly interrupt the digging. For how could one write letters that were commercial with that delirious vision almost within a hand's touch? So he and Jane would kiss and laugh, standing in the sun; and neither of them saw the look in the eyes of the dog.

To-day, tender pea shoots were inches high, and Jane said, before they went indoors to cook the fish, "We shall have one dish of peas before we go away."

Inside the cottage it was cool, always cool and dank. But they merely slept in the place and ate in it-sometimes. The weather ever since they came had been perfect-hot days and mellow nights. Before they went to bed they used to look out to sea. It was starred and spangled with lights from the fishing fleet. It was the sky upside down.

It was a little tiny cottage. The kitchen had a stone floor, whitewashed walls, and a hearth ten feet wide. Through the small window you saw the savage beauty of the world. Off the kitchen was a small room meant for a parlor. He wrote his letters there, for when you are a rich young man business has a way of breaking through your honeymoon.

After their meal and after they had washed up to-day Jane was lazy and would not go into the village.

"Afraid I must." Robert seemed perturbed. "Letters to post-I forgot them yesterday and the day before. But-Jane-I hate to leave you. I won't be long, not a minute longer than I can help."

"I'll walk with you over the moor." "Sure it won't exhaust you?"

"I'm equal to that. I'm only lazy. I'll have tea ready when you come back, and I'll bake some cakes. No; you bring some from the village."

She picked up her hat and a book. They went out. Orlando, in the first stage of an after-dinner sleep, followed her with the manner of a shrug. His ears and his tail said, "No accounting for women!" For himself, he wished to remain curled up in that corner of the sofa which he had pegged out as his own the first night they came here.

When Robert was gone Jane went back over the moor. She felt ridiculously disconsolate and she kept looking behind her. Robert, also looking back, waved his hand. He became smaller. There he was, an absurd dot. He moved along that white road which twisted between two sublimities, the rosy mountains and the rainbow sea. Was that dot Robert? Her hold on the whole world expressed by a speck! She shivered slightly, standing in the sun.

By the trout stream she sat down, opened her book, dropped it. She called Orlando and talked to him, in the absurd, fond way she used to talk to him before there was Robert. The mongrel listened attentively, his eyes brilliant, his mouth parted roguishly. When he wagged his tail she said:

"Your tail is too long, Orlando, and it never ought to curl at the tip. Your body is all wrong, but you have a heart of gold and I love you-after Robertbest in the world. Yes, that must do, my dog-after Robert." She dropped her eyes, linked her hands. "Orlando! Shall I always love you first-after Rob

ert, or are you going to be puzzled and hurt some day-soon-dearest dog?"

Orlando wasn't listening. He had fallen asleep, and his long nose, wrinkled on his broad forepaws seemed to Jane to say "The worst of women is that— when it comes to nonsense they never know when to stop."

Jane remained staring at the radiance of great hills and at that blue platter, the Atlantic.

Round the side of the hill was a grass track, made long ago by successive feet, generations dead. A man, carrying a sack, was coming round it and behind him was his shadow, his slipping, sidling shadow. In the strong sunlight there seemed two men, and one was malevolently sneakish.

When he went out of sight, Jane rose and loitered toward the cottage, wondering idly which way he was going and what he carried in the sack upon his back. The house appeared horribly empty and chill. One must warm it, make a bustle. She said, jestingly, to the dog, "I feel widowed," and then she started making cakes, cooking them in that funny stone oven by the open hearth.

She went backward and forward to the dairy, up and down three brick steps. Her face was pink and tender. There was a good smell of baking. Orlando lay down by the oven and sniffed. But more than once she called him out and they went a tiny way across the moor, looking for Robert. Each time Orlando, with an air of faint exasperation, followed at her heels, although he wished to remain by the oven and sniff at cakes.

All around her was the joyful riot of late summer. She noticed that the slate roof of a barn-very often an ugly and a livid-looking roof-was to-day intensely blue; it looked like an upland of flax. She remained staring at color that was almost warlike. Regiments of secondblooming foxgloves, bracken turning martially to flame. It was really worth while that Robert should go alone to the village-just for the rapture of his com