Colonel Ogilvie found his wife in excellent health and spirits. The cure had been effective, and the prospect¹ of meeting Joy so filled her with delight that her youth seemed to be renewed. He could see, when the morning light was admitted to their bedroom, that her eyes were bright and her cheeks rosy²; and all her movements were alert and springy. Judy too, when they went to breakfast, looked well and was in good spirits; but there was something about her which he could not understand. It was not that she was quick of intellect and speech, for such had been always her habit; it was not that she was eager, for she was not always so; it was not that she was exuberantly³ fond of Joy—she had never been anything else. But there seemed now to be some sort of elusive⁴ background to all her thoughts. He began to wonder in a vague way if it were possible that she had fallen in love. She asked, after her usual manner, a host of questions about Joy and about the visit to the Lakes; where they had been and who they had seen; and of all the little interests and happenings during the time of separation. Colonel Ogilvie felt a little wearied of it all. He had already covered the ground with the girl’s mother, for arriving in the grey of the dawn, he had gone straight to his wife’s room where he had rested till breakfast time. There he had told her all that he could remember. With, however, the patient courtesy which had not as yet in his life failed him with women he went over all the ground again with Judy. He could not but be struck with Judy’s questioning on one subject: whether they had met at Ambleside any special acquaintance. He concluded that she meant Mr. Hardy⁵, and asked her if such were the case. She blushed so brightly when she admitted it that he conceived the idea that the peccant Englishman was the object of her affection. Then, as she dropped that subject of questioning, he, in order to draw her out, went on: