Randal Bellamy\'s country house was a place of pleasant breakfasts. From the dining room the outlook was delightful; grass, flowers and sunshine, with the host\'s easy charm, made it almost as easy for Theophilus Caldegard to drink his tea fresh, as for his daughter Amaryllis not to keep her host, Sir Randal, waiting for his coffee. This morning, while she waited for the two men, the girl, remembering that this was the eighteenth of June, was surprised by the ease with which the five weeks of her stay had slipped by; and she wondered, without anxiety, at what point the guest merges into the inmate. "I can\'t live here for ever," she thought; "but as long as there\'s room for his test-tubes, and his dinner\'s good, dad thinks it\'s all right for a girl." And, as if it was all right, she laughed—just in time for Randal Bellamy to get full benefit of the pleasant sound. "Laughing all alone?" he said. "That\'s when the funny things happen," replied Amaryllis. Bellamy looked down at her, as if asking a share in her merriment.