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Rh whether her darling little boy, Ralph, was growing strong and big?

The Garden girls could not eat much for listening to these familiar quotations from novels, as the talk sounded to them, and also feeling that they were taking part in private theatricals. But Lord Kelmscourt seemed to consider it all perfectly natural, as indeed it was, for acquaintances meeting after separation ordinarily inquire for common friends; it was an accident that these people bore titles which made them seem unreal to the three Vineclad maidens. Mary noted with satisfaction that Lord Wilfrid did not eat like a blighted being. He did full justice to the excellent breakfast, undaunted by its predecessor of that morning.

Breakfast over, Win hesitated, looking painfully embarrassed. He did not want to betray his knowledge of what Mary had told him, that his sister-in-law had ordained that this genuine and attractive Englishman was not to remain her guest. On the other hand, Win did not want to leave the house without bidding him good-bye. Mary alone noticed that Win was in a quandary, and was turning over in her mind ways of solving his difficulty, when Lord Wilfrid ended it.