nd was succeeded by a man who,
though full of limitations, could at least converse intelligently on
Bowls.

Such, then, was Henry Wallace Mills. He was in the middle thirties,
temperate, studious, a moderate smoker, and--one would have said--a
bachelor of the bachelors, armour-plated against Cupid's well-meant but
obsolete artillery. Sometimes Sidney Mercer's successor in the teller's
cage, a sentimental young man, would broach the topic of Woman and
Marriage. He would ask Henry if he ever intended to get married. On
such occasions Henry would look at him in a manner which was a blend of
scorn, amusement, and indignation; and would reply with a single word:

'Me!'

It was the way he said it that impressed you.

But Henry had yet to experience the unmanning atmosphere of a lonely
summer resort. He had only just reached the position in the bank where
he was permitted to take his annual vacation in the summer. Hitherto he
had always been released from his cage during the winter months, and
had spent his ten days of freedom at his flat, with a book in his hand
and his feet on the radiator. But the summer after Sidney Mercer's
departure they unleashed him in August.

It was meltingly warm in the city. Something in Henry cried out for the
country. For a month before the beginning of his vacation he devoted
much of the time that should have been given to the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_ in reading summer-resort literature. He decided at
length upon Ye Bonnie Briar-Bush Farm because the advertisements spoke
so well of it.

Ye Bonnie Briar-Bush Farm was a rather battered frame building many
miles from anywhere. Its attractions included a Lovers' Leap, a Grotto,
golf-links--a five-hole course where the enthusiast found unusual
hazards in the shape of a number of goats tethered at intervals between
the holes--and a silvery lake, only portions of which were used as a
dumping-ground for tin cans and wooden boxes. It was all new and
strange to Henry and caused him an odd exhilaration. Something of
gaiety and reckless abandon began to creep into his veins. He had a
curious feeling that in these romantic surroundings some adventure
ought to happen to him.

At this juncture Minnie Hill arrived. She was a small, slim girl,
thinner and paler than she should have been, with large eyes that
seemed to Henry pathetic and stirred his chivalry. He began to think a
good deal about Minnie Hill.

And then one evening he met her on the sho