“Oh,” cried Pamela, “you are cruel to the girl I once was.  The years mellow.  Surely you welcome improvement, even while you remind me of my sins and faults of youth.”

“I don’t think,” Lewis Elliot said slowly, “that I ever allowed myself to think that the Pamela Reston I knew needed improvement.  That would have savoured of sacrilege....  Are we finished?  We might have coffee in the other room.”

Pamela looked at her host as she rose from the table, and said, “Years have brought clearer eyes for faults.”

“I wonder,” said Lewis Elliot, as he put a large chocolate into Mhor’s ever-ready mouth.

Before going home they went for a walk up the glen.  Jean and the boys, very much at home, were in front, while Lewis named the surrounding hills and explained the lie of the land to Pamela.  They fell into talk of younger days, and laughed over episodes they had not thought of for twenty years.

“And, do you know, Biddy’s coming home?” Pamela said.  “I keep remembering that with a most delightful surprise.  I haven’t seen him for more than a year—­my beloved Biddy!”

“He was a most charming boy,” Lewis said.  “I suppose he would be about fifteen when last I saw him.  How old is he now?”

“Thirty-five.  But such a young thirty-five.  He has always been doing the most youth-preserving things, chasing over the world after adventures, like a boy after butterflies, seeing new peoples, walking in untrodden ways.  If he had lived in more spacious days he would have sailed with Francis Drake and helped to singe the King of Spain’s beard.  Oh, I do think you will still like Biddy.  The charm he had at fifteen he hasn’t lost one little bit.  He has still the same rather shy manner and slow way of speaking and sudden, affection-winning smile.  The War has changed him of course, emptied and saddened his life, and he isn’t the light-foot lad he was six years ago.  When it was all over he went off for one more year’s roving.  He has a great project which I don’t suppose will ever be accomplished—­to climb Everest.  He and three great friends had arranged it all before the War, but everything of course was stopped, and whatever happens he will never climb it with those three friends.  They had to scale greater heights than Everest.  It is a sober and responsible Biddy who is coming back, to settle down and look after his places, and go into politics, perhaps—­”

They walked together in comfortable silence.

Jean, in front, turned round and waved to them.

“I’m glad,” said Lewis, “that you and Jean have made friends.  Jean—­” He stopped.

Pamela stood very still for a second, and then said, “Yes?”

“Jean and her brothers are sort of cousins of mine.  I’ve always been fond of them, and my mother and I used to try to give them a good time when we could, for Great-aunt Alison’s was rather an iron rule.  But a man alone is such a helpless object, as Mrs. Hope often reminds me.  It isn’t fair that Jean shouldn’t have her chance.  She never gets away, and her youth is being spoiled by care.  She is such a quaint little person with her childlike face and motherly ways!  I do wish something could be done.”