“You mustn’t ask too much of me,” he said.
“No, no, dearest boy; I’m glad for you to go away, but where will you go?”
He thought he would pay an overdue visit to Cobble Place.
Mrs. Ross and Mrs. Carthew were delighted to see him, and he felt as he always felt at Cobble Place the persistent tranquillity which not the greatest inquietude of spirit could long withstand. It was now nearly three years since he had been there, and he was surprised to see how very old Mrs. Carthew had grown in that time. This and the active presence of Kenneth, now a jolly boy of nine, were the only changes in the aspect of the household. Michael enjoyed himself in firing Kenneth with a passion for birds’ eggs and butterflies, and they went long walks together and made expeditions in the canoe.
Yet every day when Michael sat down to write to Lily, he almost wrote to say he was coming to London as soon as his letter. Her letters to him, written in a sprawling girlish hand, were always very much alike.
1 ARARAT HOUSE,
ISLAND ROAD, W.
My dear,
Come back soon. I’m getting bored. Miss Harper isn’t bad. Can’t write a long letter because this nib is awful. Kisses.
Your loving
Lily.
This would stand for any of them.