were youthful and
softly dimpled; her brow seemed again the calm, guileless brow of a girl;
her eyes, as she raised them in greeting, were serene.

"I wanted to explain to you," he began obliquely, "about that--that
falling asleep. It's been worrying me. You see, I hadn't had any rest for
three or four nights, I had been bothering about my affairs, and about
something more important still."

Bean poles, covered with bright green verdure, made a background of young
summer for her own promise of early maturity. She placed the basin on the
ground, and stood with her arms hanging loosely, gazing at him
expectantly, frankly.

"The most important thing in my life," he added, then paused. "I thought
for a while that I had better go away without saying anything to you, and
more particularly since I have lost everything." He could hear, coming
over the road, the regular hoof-beats of a trotting horse, and he had the
feeling that it must be a messenger from the village, dispatched in
search of Lettice with the news of her father's death. For a moment the
horse seemed to be stopping; he was afraid that his opportunity had been
lost; but, after all, the hoof-beats passed, diminished over the road.
Then, "Since I have lost everything," he repeated.

"Please tell me more," she demanded, "I don't understand--"

"But," he continued, in the manner he had hastily adopted, "when the time
came I couldn't; I couldn't go away and leave you. I thought, perhaps, you
might be different from others; I thought, perhaps, you might like a man
for what he was, and not for what he had. I would come to you, I decided,
and tell you all this, tell you that I could work, yes, and would, and
make enough--" He paused in order to observe the effect of his speech upon
her. She was gazing clear-eyed at him, in a sort of shining expectancy, a
grave, eager comprehension, appealing, incongruous, to her girlhood.

"But why?" she queried.

"Because I'm in love with you: I want to marry you."

Her gaze did not falter, but her color changed swiftly, a rosy tide swept
over her cheeks, and died away, leaving her pale. Her lips trembled. A
palpable, radiant content settled upon her.

"Thank you," she told him seriously; "it will make me very happy to marry
you, Gordon."

With a fleeting, backward glance he moved closer to her, his arm fell
about her waist, he pressed a hasty, ill-directed kiss upon her chin.
"Will you marry me now?" he asked eagerly. "You se