It contained the programme and the rules of a small poetical club presided over by a Miss Slimon. Each member was supposed to invent or create a poem on a given subject each month and to send the result to Miss Slimon, who would read it. But the matter did not end there. Miss Slimon, by virtue of her self-constituted office, would send in due course each member's poem to each of the other members for criticism, and the results would be made known and published in a small pamphlet at the end of the year. The subscription was a guinea, and to this society for the circulation of rubbish Miss Grimshaw had been invited to subscribe. Hence the trouble.
"She asked me if I liked poetry, and I said I did, like a fool, and then she asked me to join, and I agreed. I can't back out now. She never told me the subscription was a guinea."
"It's beastly bad luck," said Mr. Dashwood, who by this time knew the financial affairs of the Frenches thoroughly to their innermost convolutions, and who was at the moment himself in the most horrible condition of penury, a condition that made the purchase of his week-end ticket to Crowsnest (he came down every week-end) a matter of consequence.
"And that's not all," went on the girl. "Here's a bazaar coming on, and, of course, we'll have to subscribe to that in some way. They want me to take a stall. You haven't any aunts or anyone who would do embroidery for it, have you? It's to be on April 5."
"No," said Mr. Dashwood, "I don't think I have any female relatives any good in the fancy needlework line. I've got a charitably-disposed elderly female cousin I might land for a subscription, though."
"I wouldn't trust myself with the money. No matter. I daresay we will manage somehow. I want to go down to Crowsnest and post these letters. Will you walk with me?"
"Rather," replied Mr. Dashwood, and, taking his hat, he followed her out on the verandah.
It was a clear March morning, without a trace of cloud in the sky, and with just a trace of frost in the air. The country, still half wrapped in the sleep of winter, had that charm which a perfect English early spring day can alone disclose, and there was something—something in the air, something in the sky, some indefinable thrill at the heart of things that said, spirit fashion, to whoever could hear, "All this is drawing to a close. Even now, in the woods, here and there, you will find primroses. In a week or two you will find a million. My doors are just about to open, the cuckoo is just preening for flight, the swallows at Luxor and Carnac are dreaming of the pine trees and the north. I am Spring."
Mr. Dashwood was not given to poetical interpretations of Nature's moods, but there was that in the air to-day which raised to an acute stage the chronic disease he had been suffering from for months. He had seen a lot of his companion during the last ten weeks or so, but he had played the game like a man. Not a word had he said of his mortal malady to the author of it.