"But we shall have you with us again later in the season?"
"I certainly hope so. It won't be my fault if you don't."
"I cannot tell you how grateful I feel for the change which your visit--for I can set it down to nothing else--has wrought in FeliX. Not for years--nay, scarcely since our marriage--has he seemed so cheerful, so free from care, so little given to brooding over his experiments and shutting himself up among his books, as during the three weeks you have been with us."
"Ah ha! I do take some little credit to myself for having coaxed our snail out of his shell, for having wheedled our bookworm out of his seclusion; and it must be your care after I'm gone, dear Mrs. Drelincourt, to see that he doesn't revert to his hermit-like ways."
A little sigh escaped Mrs. Drelincourt.
"I am greatly afraid that when your enlivening presence is no longer here, everything will go on precisely as it did before your arrival."
"It is always wise to hope for the best. In any case, I won't fail to come and stir up Felix again in the course of the autumn."
Before more could be said, Marian, closely followed by Walter, each of them carrying a croquet mallet, made their appearance at one of the long windows, which, this balmy afternoon, stood wide open.
"Colonel Winslow," said the flushed and happy looking girl, "we want you to come and decide a point of the game for us about which we can't agree."
Left alone, Mrs. Drelincourt resumed her needlework. Her thoughts were busy with what had just passed between the colonel and herself.