so well, "if _you_ find out I'm not an angel don't tell
him, please. I wouldn't have him undeceived for the world."

"I don't think I shall find it out, mademoiselle. I quite agree with
your uncle. Here he comes now."

Reuben Kent came out of the open front door, smoking a pipe. He paused
at sight of his niece in friendly colloquy with a strange gentleman. The
next moment he recognized him, and came forward at once in hearty
welcome.

"Wal, squire," Mr. Kent said, "you _hev_ come, when I had e'enamost gi'n
you up. How dye deow? 'Tarnal hot, ain't it? Must be a powerful sight
hotter, though, up to York. How air you. You're lookin' pretty
considerably spry. Norry's glad to see you, _I_ know. That gal's bin a
talkin' o' ye continual. Come in, squire--come in. My sister Hester will
be right glad to see ye."

What a cordial welcome it was; what a charming agricultural person Mr.
Reuben Kent, one of nature's Down East noblemen, indeed. In a glow of
pleasure, feeling ten years younger and ten times better looking than
when he had started, the New York lawyer walked up to the house, into
the wide, cool hall, into the "keepin' room," and took a seat. A
pleasant room; but was not everything about Kent Farm pleasant, with two
large western windows, through which the rose and golden light of the
low dropping sun streamed over the store carpet, the cane-seated chairs,
the flowers in the cracked tumblers, and white, delf pitchers. Traces of
Norine were everywhere; the piano in a corner, the centre-table littered
with books, papers, magazines and scraps of needle-work, the two
canaries singing in the sunny windows, all spoke of taste, and girlhood.
There were white muslin curtains, crocheted tidies on every chair in the
room, a lounge, covered with _cretonne_ in a high state of glaze and
gaudy coloring, and the scent of the hay fields and the lilacs over all.
No fifth-avenue drawing-room, no satin-hung silver-gilt reception-room,
had ever looked one half so exquisite in this metropolitan gentleman's
professional eyes. For there, amid the singing birds and the scented
roses, stood a tall, slim girl, in a pink muslin dress--and where were
the ormolu or brocatelle could embellish any room as she did?

Uncle Reuben went in search of Aunt Hester, and returned with that lady
presently; and Mr. Gilbert saw a bony little woman with bright eyes and
a saffron complexion. Miss Kent welcomed him as an old friend, and
pressed him to "stay to