my hair she recounts these items to me, and
I pretend to be uninterested, and listen with all my ears.

In any case, Mr Maplestone seems very kind and attentive to his mother.
I met them (as fancy painted!) when I was coming home from a trudge
along the damp lanes, and was looking considerably blown and
dishevelled. They were getting out of their car just outside the gates
of Uplands--a most malapropos position!--but without the least
hesitation he lifted his hat, and bowed, so that I was spared the
troubled uncertainty which I had imagined.

I can't say he looked _amiable_, but at least he was polite, and I was
so relieved that I bowed back with quite a broad smile. Mrs Maplestone
looked at me more in sorrow than in anger. I suppose she was thinking,
"So young and so unkind!" An hour later, from an upstairs window, I saw
the car whizzing homewards along the road. It did not stop at our gate.
I rather wished it would.

After that we were constantly meeting. There seemed a fate in it. If I
darted into the post office to buy a penny stamp, he was there buying
tobacco. (You _do_ buy tobacco in village post offices!) If I cut
across fields and sat on a stile to rest, he came whistling from the
opposite direction, and I had to get up to let him pass. If in leaving
the house I turned to the right, I met him advancing to the left. If I
turned to the left, behold he was striding manfully to the right! Each
meeting was the result of absolute chance, but Mistress Chance can play
curious pranks at times, and it really seemed as though she was taking a
mischievous delight in bringing about these unwished-for encounters. We
always bow ceremoniously to each other; he always frowns, and I always
smile. Theoretically I am annoyed and indignant; but at the critical
moment the comical side of the situation sweeps over me, and out flashes
the smile before I can force it back. It is so absurd to see a big
grown man sulking like a child! Quite a good thing he does not intend
to marry. His wife would have a nerve-racking time.

Well, as I said before, three months have passed by. Spring has turned
into summer, and every day the garden brings fresh, delightful
surprises. Uninteresting green sprouts burst into unexpected bloom; the
rock garden is a blaze of purple and gold; blackened stems of creepers
have disappeared beneath festoons of leaves and flowers.

Charmion and I wear muslin dresses, and eat our meals in the ar