"You see," said Harry when the two had gone a little way; "you see, the fact is, Madge—hm. Madge—"
"You mean," said James, smiling, "there is hope of a new generation of our illustrious house?"
"Yes! I only learned this morning. If it's a boy we're going to call it James, and if it's a girl we're going to call it Jaqueline."
"I wonder," mused James, "how many times you have named it since you first heard."
"There have been several suggestions," admitted Harry, laughing. "I really think it will end by that, though."
"Jaqueline—quite a pretty name. Much prettier than James—I rather hope it will be a girl."
"Yes, I do too," said Harry. And both knew that they would not have troubled to express that wish if they had not really hoped the direct opposite....
They walked slowly up the hill and presently turned and stopped to admire the view that the foolish prudence of a dead farmer had prevented them from enjoying from the house. It was a very lovely view, with its tumbled stretches of hills and fields and occasional sheets of blue water bathed in the mellow light of the sun that hung low over the dark mountain wall to the west. Possibly it was its sheer beauty, or the impression it gave of distance from human strife and sordidness, or perhaps the subject last mentioned imparted to their thoughts and impulse away from the trivial and familiar; at any rate when Harry next spoke his words fell neither on James' ears nor his own with the sound of fatuity that they might have held at another time.
"James," he said, "we're getting on, aren't we? I don't mean in years, though that's a most extraordinary feeling in itself, but in—in life, in the business of living. If you ask me what I mean by that high-sounding phrase I can only say it's something like coming out of every experience a little better qualified to meet whatever new experience lies in store for you. Of course we've heard about life being a game and all that facile rot ever since we were old enough to speak, but it's quite different when you come to feel it. It's a sensation all by itself, isn't it?"
James drew a deep breath. "Yes, it is quite by itself," he agreed. "And I'm glad to be able to say that at last I have some idea of what the actual feeling is like. It was atrophied long enough in me, Heaven knows! It's still very slight, very timid and tentative; just a sort of glimmering at times—"