ase. He seemed to be dabbing little touches at the
canvas, as a spontaneous kind of fun not likely to result in anything
serious, save, perhaps, the necessity of scrubbing them off afterwards,
like a too adventurous child. Mary Brinsley, in her lilac print, stood a
few paces away, the sun on her hair, and watched him.

"Paris is very becoming to you," she said at last.

"What do you mean?" asked Wilmer, glancing up, and then beginning to
consider her so particularly that she stepped aside, her brows knitted,
with an admonishing,

"Look out! you'll get me into the landscape."

"You're always in the landscape. What do you mean about Paris?"

"You look so--so travelled, so equal to any place, and Paris in
particular because it's the finest."

Other people also had said that, in their various ways. He had the
distinction set by nature upon a muscular body and a rather small head,
well poised. His hair, now turning gray, grew delightfully about the
temples, and though it was brushed back in the style of a man who never
looks at himself twice when once will do, it had a way of seeming
entirely right. His brows were firm, his mouth determined, and the close
pointed beard brought his face to a delicate finish. Even his clothes,
of the kind that never look new, had fallen into lines of easy use.

"You needn't guy me," he said, and went on painting. But he flashed his
sudden smile at her. "Isn't New England becoming to me, too?"

"Yes, for the summer. It's over-powered. In the winter Aunt Celia calls
you 'Jerry Wilmer.' She's quite topping then. But the minute you appear
with European labels on your trunks and that air of speaking foreign
lingo, she gives out completely. Every time she sees your name in the
paper she forgets you went to school at the Academy and built the fires.
She calls you 'our boarder' then, for as much as a week and a half."

"Quit it, Mary," said he, smiling at her again.

"Well," said Mary, yet without turning, "I must go and weed a while."

"No," put in Wilmer, innocently; "he won't be over yet. He had a big
mail. I brought it to him."

Mary blushed, and made as if to go. She was a woman of thirty-five, well
poised, and sweet through wholesomeness. Her face had been cut on a
regular pattern, and then some natural influence had touched it up
beguilingly with contradictions. She swung back, after her one tentative
step, and sobered.

"How do you think he is looking?" she asked.

"Prime."