d longingly at the
nosegay.

"The gardener is a niggard with his flowers," she said with a coaxing
smile.

"To confess the truth," said I, wavering in my purpose, "the nosegay was
plucked for another."

"It will smell the sweeter," she cried, with a laugh. "Nothing gives
flowers such a perfume." And she held out a wonderfully small hand
towards my nosegay.

"Is that a London lesson?" I asked, holding the flowers away from her
grasp.

"It holds good in the country also, sir; wherever, indeed, there is a
man to gather flowers and more than one lady who loves smelling them."

"Well," said I, "the nosegay is yours at the price," and I held it out
to her.

"The price? What, you desire to know my name?"

"Unless, indeed, I may call you one of my own choosing," said I, with a
glance that should have been irresistible.

"Would you use it in speaking of me to Mistress Barbara there? No, I'll
give you a name to call me by. You may call me Cydaria."

"Cydaria! A fine name!"

"It is," said she carelessly, "as good as any other."

"But is there no other to follow it?"

"When did a poet ask two names to head his sonnet? And surely you wanted
mine for a sonnet?"

"So be it, Cydaria," said I.

"So be it, Simon. And is not Cydaria as pretty as Barbaria?"

"It has a strange sound," said I, "but it's well enough."

"And now--the nosegay!"

"I must pay a reckoning for this," I sighed; but since a bargain is a
bargain I gave her the nosegay.

She took it, her face all alight with smiles, and buried her nose in it.
I stood looking at her, caught by her pretty ways and graceful boldness.
Boy though I was, I had been right in telling her that there are many
ways of beauty; here were two to start with, hers and Barbara's. She
looked up and, finding my gaze on her, made a little grimace as though
it were only what she had expected and gave her no more concern than
pleasure. Yet at such a look Barbara would have turned cold and distant
for an hour or more. Cydaria, smiling in scornful indulgence, dropped me
another mocking curtsey, and made as though she would go her way. Yet
she did not go, but stood with her head half-averted, a glance straying
towards me from the corner of her eye, while with her tiny foot she dug
the gravel of the avenue.

"It is a lovely place, this park," said she. "But, indeed, it's often
hard to find the way about it."

I was not backward to take her hint.

"If you had a guide now----" I beg