r own and not reflected from social circumstance,
he wished to give himself the satisfaction of contrasting her with the
meagre influences of her education. Miss Garland's second movement was
to take him at his word. "Since you are free to do as you please, why
don't you go there?"

"I am not free to do as I please now. I have offered your cousin to bear
him company to Europe, he has accepted with enthusiasm, and I cannot
retract."

"Are you going to Europe simply for his sake?"

Rowland hesitated a moment. "I think I may almost say so."

Miss Garland walked along in silence. "Do you mean to do a great deal
for him?" she asked at last.

"What I can. But my power of helping him is very small beside his power
of helping himself."

For a moment she was silent again. "You are very generous," she said,
almost solemnly.

"No, I am simply very shrewd. Roderick will repay me. It 's an
investment. At first, I think," he added shortly afterwards, "you would
not have paid me that compliment. You distrusted me."

She made no attempt to deny it. "I did n't see why you should wish to
make Roderick discontented. I thought you were rather frivolous."

"You did me injustice. I don't think I 'm that."

"It was because you are unlike other men--those, at least, whom I have
seen."

"In what way?"

"Why, as you describe yourself. You have no duties, no profession, no
home. You live for your pleasure."

"That 's all very true. And yet I maintain I 'm not frivolous."

"I hope not," said Miss Garland, simply. They had reached a point where
the wood-path forked and put forth two divergent tracks which lost
themselves in a verdurous tangle. Miss Garland seemed to think that the
difficulty of choice between them was a reason for giving them up and
turning back. Rowland thought otherwise, and detected agreeable grounds
for preference in the left-hand path. As a compromise, they sat down on
a fallen log. Looking about him, Rowland espied a curious wild shrub,
with a spotted crimson leaf; he went and plucked a spray of it and
brought it to Miss Garland. He had never observed it before, but she
immediately called it by its name. She expressed surprise at his not
knowing it; it was extremely common. He presently brought her a specimen
of another delicate plant, with a little blue-streaked flower. "I
suppose that 's common, too," he said, "but I have never seen it--or
noticed it, at least." She answered that this one was rare, and
me