The tea-tray was “laid” at last, in the most approved manner, on that very parlour-table round which he had pursued the girl in such troubled agitation so short a time before; and Mrs. Solent, Gerda’s apron removed, showed herself in the most fashionable of all her garden-party gowns. Gerda seemed unable to keep her eyes off her, and kept touching with the tips of her fingers first one elegant frill and then another, hovering about her like a slim white butterfly round a purple orchid.

“There’s Mother!” she cried at length. “Fetch the kettle, Wolf!”

The countenance of Mrs. Torp was as a book in which one could “read strange matters,” as she contemplated the scene before her. Wolf, with the teapot in one hand and the kettle in the other, vociferated a boisterous welcome, drowning the politer words of his mother.