ndon, she can but just have escaped the plague."

Barbara tossed her head again, declaring plainly her opinion of my
excuse.

"But if you desire me to walk with you----" I began.

"There is nothing I thought of less," she interrupted. "I came here to
be alone."

"My pleasure lies in obeying you," said I, and I stood bareheaded while
Barbara, without another glance at me, walked off towards the house.
Half penitent, yet wholly obstinate, I watched her go; she did not once
look over her shoulder. Had she--but a truce to that. What passed is
enough; with what might have, my story would stretch to the world's end.
I smothered my remorse, and went up to the stranger, bidding her
good-day in my most polite and courtly manner; she smiled, but at what I
knew not. She seemed little more than a child, sixteen years old or
seventeen at the most, yet there was no confusion in her greeting of me.
Indeed, she was most marvellously at her ease, for, on my salute, she
cried, lifting her hands in feigned amazement,

"A man, by my faith; a man in this place!"

Well pleased to be called a man, I bowed again.

"Or at least," she added, "what will be one, if it please Heaven."

"You may live to see it without growing wrinkled," said I, striving to
conceal my annoyance.

"And one that has repartee in him! Oh, marvellous!"

"We do not all lack wit in the country, madame," said I, simpering as I
supposed the Court gallants to simper, "nor, since the plague came to
London, beauty."

"Indeed, it's wonderful," she cried in mock admiration. "Do they teach
such sayings hereabouts, sir?"

"Even so, madame, and from such books as your eyes furnish." And for all
her air of mockery, I was, as I remember, much pleased with this speech.
It had come from some well-thumbed romance, I doubt not. I was always an
eager reader of such silly things.

She curtseyed low, laughing up at me with roguish eyes and mouth.

"Now, surely, sir," she said, "you must be Simon Dale, of whom my host
the gardener speaks?"

"It is my name, madame, at your service. But the gardener has played me
a trick; for now I have nothing to give in exchange for your name."

"Nay, you have a very pretty nosegay in your hand," said she. "I might
be persuaded to barter my name for it."

The nosegay that was in my hand I had gathered and brought for Barbara
Quinton, and I still meant to use it as a peace-offering. But Barbara
had treated me harshly, and the stranger looke