but she looked up in a moment and saw him.

Was that Ralph? She felt her heart jump clear into her throat; as she
paused, and stared at the tall gentleman rapidly approaching, and she
had no strength to take another step. She had arranged a little speech
to deliver at the proper moment, but,

"By the sycamore passed he, and through the white clover;"

then all the sweet speech she had fashioned took flight. He came nearer
with eager brightness in his handsome eyes; he took her two resistless
hands and looked under her hat-brim.

"Kathleen, is it you?"

At the sound of the voice, which was still the same, Kat was covered
with a swift, shy confusion. She had expected a boy; there had come to
her a man, who had come at her bidding, and who loved her. She longed to
run away or hide her head, or something, but how could she when he held
her hands, and persisted in looking under her hat.

"I expected to find you racing along the road or sitting on a fence, and
waiting for me," he said, with a laugh. "I looked for my dear romp, and
instead of that, I meet a graceful lovely young woman with the sweetest
face in the world, and I don't believe she's glad to see me."

"What made you go and change so?" stammered Kat, still unable to
reconcile the vision before her with the boyish Ralph Tremayne. "I'd
never known you, anywhere."

"Nor I, you, hardly. What made you go and change so?" retorted he.

"I haven't."

"Neither have I."

Whereupon they felt better acquainted, and laughed socially; then he
kissed her, and slipped her hand through his arm.

"You're not sorry you told me to come, are you?"

"Not a bit. Are you sorry you came?"

"Not a bit. You're altogether lovely and charming, my dear, and may I
tell you how much I love you?"

"I guess you'd better not. I'll have to get a little better acquainted
with you first, you've gone and grown so big and handsome, and all
that," answered Kat, feeling more comfortable, and looking up at him
with some of the old saucy twinkle in her eyes.

"Bless those eyes," he exclaimed, with every symptom of telling the
forbidden fact. "I must tell you, dear, that you have grown lovely."

"You told me that once."

"Don't you like to hear it?"

"I shouldn't wonder if I did. But I must tell you something important
before we go any farther," said Kat solemnly.

"Do so at once; I'm listening."

"Well, Ralph, I've--I've had another proposal since I wrote to you,"
confessed th