es."

"Yes, I found a pimpernel flower on the Hills to-day," said Thornly
irrelevantly. "Even the flora is startling."

"You found what?"

"A pimpernel. It's a common wild flower in some sandy places, but a
strange enough little rascal to be seen just here. It's called the poor
man's weather glass. Where it grows most common, it is not especially
noticeable; but it almost took my breath this morning. It's in keeping
with the surprises of the surroundings."

Devant laughed.

"Well," he said presently, "it must be a relation, same family, you
know, of a pimpernel of a girl I've discovered here."

Thornly again contracted his brows.

"Solitary flower? Shutting up at approach of storm, and all the rest?"
he asked.

"Solitary flower, all right," Devant rejoined. "I'm not up on
plant-ology, but I've studied humans, off and on, and I cannot account
for this one. I don't know whether, in my position as friend to you, I
should bring this odd specimen to your notice, but I'd like to have you,
as an artist, pass judgment upon her beauty."

"I might have the storm's effect upon this pimpernel of yours," Thornly
put in, "make her hide within herself."

"I fancy storms would not daunt her. I don't know but that she would
rather enjoy them."

Thornly yawned secretly.

"Handsome, is she?"

"Not only that," said Devant, "I suppose she is wonderfully handsome.
She has grace, too, and a figure, I should say, about perfect. But it
is her mental make-up that staggers me. She talks in one way and thinks
in another. She clings to her g's, too, in spite of local tradition. She
hasn't a passing acquaintance with 'ain't,' or the more criminal
'hain't.' Her English is good, she reads like a starved soul, for the
pure pleasure of it; and she thinks like a child of ten. By Jove! she
was here in my library, the day I arrived. She had a secret method of
getting into the house by a cellar window,--had done it for years. She
almost froze my blood when I saw her. I thought I'd struck a ghost for
certain. She was reading Shakespeare! Said she hadn't been able to get
beyond him for three months. She began to read when she was little, at
the bottom shelf, and has worked her way up to the fifth. And yet with
all that, she's a simple child, Dick. Smollett and Fielding and heaven
knows who else are on the third shelf!"

"Lord!" cried Thornly, and laughed loudly; "who is this pimpernel?"

"Janet of the Dunes. Cap'n Billy's girl! Been brough