no more; but we do not care. We are cosier indoors than we ever were out.
We have been playing at a foolish game this past month, Paul and I. We made a bad beginning in being so much in love with each other, and we have gone steadily down, deeper and deeper. Every day we go a little further, for love either increases or diminishes; passionately as one may care for a thing to-day, one can love it even better to-morrow, there is no standing still. And as besottedly fond as Paul is of me, so I am of him, and an uncommonly pretty pair of fools we make. At the present moment there is no one to take heed of us, fortunately; no one, that is to say, but Venus, who is shaking an uncommonly loose leg in the distance, and as she is hanging on the wall without any visual power, save that given by cobalt blue badly laid on, we may be said to be tolerably secure from unkind criticism.
We are in the old school-room, from whence Amberley's rule has for ever departed; the curtains are drawn, and we are sitting before the fire. It is our favourite haunt, for the boys are far too well-bred to intrude upon us, indeed they avert their jolly faces if they happen to meet us, as though a recognized pair of lovers were the most immoral spectacle in the world, and there is no chance here, as in the drawing-room, of Simpkins or the footman walking in every five minutes or so, on some trifling pretext or errand.
"Have you heard from your father yet?" asks Paul.
"No. Paul!”
"Yes."
"Do you know, that I really think he was sorry when he went away———"
"Well, darling?"
"Nothing! only I don't think I can ever feel comfortably rebellious with him again; I shall have a sort of half-and-balf feeling that will make me a detestable mixture."
