r explanations, her justifications, and her
parting,--all the reserve and the coldness that she had laid up in her
heart, as one fills high a little ice-house with fear of far-off summer
heat,--all were quite gone, melted away. And everything that he had
planned to tell her was forgotten also at the sight of that stern figure
on horseback bearing unconsciously down upon them.

"If I had only kept my mouth shut about his old fences," he said to
himself. "Confound my bull!" and he looked anxiously at Daphne, who sat
with her eyes riveted on her father. The next moment she had turned, and
they were laughing in each other's faces.

"What shall I do?" she cried, leaning over and burying her face in her
hands, and lifting it again, scarlet with excitement.

"Don't do anything," he said calmly.

"But Hilary, if he sees us, we are lost."

"If he sees us, we are found."

"But he mustn't see me here!" she cried, with something like real
terror. "I believe I'll lie down in the grass. Maybe he'll think I am a
friend of yours."

"My friends all sit up in the grass," said Hilary.

But Daphne had already hidden.

Many a time, when a little girl, she had amused herself by screaming
like a hawk at the young guineas, and seeing them cuddle invisible under
small tufts and weeds. Out in the stable lot, where the grass was grazed
so close that the geese could barely nip it, she would sometimes get one
of the negro men to scare the little pigs, for the delight of seeing
them squat as though hidden, when they were no more hidden than if they
had spread themselves out upon so many dinner dishes. All of us reveal
traces of this primitive instinct upon occasion. Daphne was doing her
best to hide now.

When Hilary realized it he moved in front of her, screening her as well
as possible.

"Hadn't you better lie down, too?" she asked.

"No," he replied quickly.

"But if he sees you, he might take a notion to ride over this way!"

"Then he'll have to ride."

"But, Hilary, suppose he were to find me lying down here behind you,
hiding?"

"Then he'll have to find you."

"You get me into trouble, and then you won't help me out!" exclaimed
Daphne with considerable heat.

"It might not make matters any better for me to hide," he answered
quietly. "But if he comes over here and tries to get us into trouble,
I'll see then what I can do."

Daphne lay silent for a moment, thinking. Then she nestled more closely
down, and said with gay