learly to be the professed enemy of man did not
altogether disincline you for his company!

At any rate it seemed quite natural to Janet Leighton that, when it was
time to go, and a charming girl in khaki with green facings caught the
pony, and harnessed it for Mrs. Fergusson's parting guests, Ellesborough
should turn up, as soon as the farewells were over; and that she should
find herself driving the pony-carriage up the hill, while Ellesborough
and Rachel walked behind, and at a lengthening distance. Once or twice
she looked back, and saw that the captain was gathering some of the
abounding wild flowers which had sprung up on the heels of the retreating
forest, and that Rachel had fastened a bunch of them into her hat. She
smiled to herself, and drove steadily on. Rachel was young and pretty.
Marriage with some man--some day--was certainly her fate. The kind,
unselfish Janet intended to "play up."

Then, with a jerk, she remembered there was a story. Nonsense! An unhappy
love affair, no doubt, which had happened in her first youth, and in
Canada. Well, such things, in the case of a girl with the temperament of
Rachel, are only meant to be absorbed in another love affair. They are
the leaf mould that feeds the final growth. Janet cheerfully said to
herself that, probably, her partnership with Rachel would only be a short
one.

The pair behind were, indeed, much occupied with each other. The tragic
incident of the afternoon seemed to have carried them rapidly through the
preliminary stages of acquaintance. At least, it led naturally to talk
about things and feelings more real and intimate than generally haunt the
first steps. And in this talk each found the other more and more
congenial. Ellesborough was now half amused, half touched, by the mixture
of childishness and maturity in Rachel. One moment her ignorance
surprised him, and the next, some shrewd or cynical note in what she was
saying scattered the _ingenue_ impression, and piqued his curiosity
afresh. She was indeed crassly ignorant about many current affairs in
which he himself was keenly interested, and of which he supposed all
educated women must by now have learnt the ABC. She could not have given
him the simplest historical outline of the great war; he saw that she was
quite uncertain whether Lloyd George or Asquith were Prime Minister; and
as to politics and public persons in Canada, where she had clearly lived
some time, her mind seemed to be a complete