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The Doña flushed with pleasure, and they strolled off towards the border, whither they were shortly followed by Concha.

Teresa and Guy sat on by the tea-table.

“I quite agree with you,” she said presently. “Dad’s life is pleasant to contemplate. Somehow, he belongs to this planet—he manages to be happy.”

“Yes, you see he doesn’t try to pretend that he belongs to a different scheme of evolution from beasts and trees and things, and he doesn’t dream. Do you think he ever thinks of his latter end?” and he gave a little squeak of laughter.

Teresa smiled absently, and for some seconds gazed in silence at the view. Then she said, “Think of all the things happening everywhere ... but there are such gaps that we can’t feel the process—even in ourselves; we can only register results and that isn’t living, and it’s frightfully unæsthetic.”

“But, my dear Teresa, that’s what I’m always preaching!” cried Guy indignantly. “It’s exactly this registering of results instead of living through processes that is so frightful. In a poem you shouldn’t say, ‘Hullo! There’s a lesser celandine!’ all ready-made, you know; and then start moralising about it: ‘In its unostentatious performance of its duty it reminds me of a Mr. Wilkinson, a clergyman that I once knew’—you know the sort of thing. In your poem the lesser celandine should go through the whole process of growth—and then it should wither and die.”