Chapter 7

VENIT TANDEM FELICITAS.

It was just three days after the Doctor and the
Admiral had congratulated each other upon the closer tie
which was to unite their two families, and to turn their
friendship into something even dearer and more intimate,
that Miss Ida Walker received a letter which caused her
some surprise and considerable amusement. It was dated
from next door, and was handed in by the red-headed page
after breakfast.

"Dear Miss Ida," began this curious document, and
then relapsed suddenly into the third person. "Mr.
Charles Westmacott hopes that he may have the extreme
pleasure of a ride with Miss Ida Walker upon his tandem
tricycle. Mr. Charles Westmacott will bring it round in
half an hour. You in front. Yours very truly, Charles
Westmacott." The whole was written in a large,
loose-jointed, and school-boyish hand, very thin on the
up strokes and thick on the down, as though care and
pains had gone to the fashioning of it.

Strange as was the form, the meaning was clear
enough; so Ida hastened to her room, and had hardly
slipped on her light grey cycling dress when she
saw the tandem with its large occupant at the door. He
handed her up to her saddle with a more solemn and
thoughtful face than was usual with him, and a few
moments later they were flying along the beautiful,
smooth suburban roads in the direction of Forest Hill.
The great limbs of the athlete made the heavy machine
spring and quiver with every stroke; while the mignon
grey figure with the laughing face, and the golden curls
blowing from under the little pink-banded straw hat,
simply held firmly to her perch, and let the treadles
whirl round beneath her feet. Mile after mile they flew,
the wind beating in her face, the trees dancing past in
two long ranks on either side, until they had passed
round Croydon and were approaching Norwood once more from
the further side.

"Aren't you tired?" she asked, glancing over her
shoulder and turning towards him a little pink ear, a
fluffy golden curl, and one blue eye twinkling from the
very corner of its lid.

"Not a bit. I am just getting my swing."

"Isn't it wonderful to be strong? You always remind
me of a steamengine."

"Why a steamengine?"

"Well, because it is so powerful, and reliable, and
unreasoning. Well, I didn't mean that last, you know,
but--but--you know what I mean. What is the matter with
you?"

"Why?"

"Because you have something on your mind. You have
not laughed once."

He broke into a gruesome laugh. "I am quite jolly,"
said he.

"Oh, no, you are not. And why did you write me such
a dreadfully stiff letter?"

"There now," he cried,