ot strike either of
them as unnatural or extraordinary. They came to a bench on the bank,
and he made a great fuss dusting the seat for her with his black slouch
hat. Then he regretted the hat--it was a shabby old hat of a Carlow
County fashion.

It was a long bench, and he seated himself rather remotely toward the
end opposite her, suddenly realizing that he had walked very close to
her, coming down the narrow garden path. Neither knew that neither had
spoken since they left the veranda; and it had taken them a long time to
come through the little orchard and the garden. She rested her chin
on her hand, leaning forward and looking steadily at the creek. Her
laughter had quite gone; her attitude seemed a little wistful and a
little sad. He noted that her hair curled over her brow in a way he had
not pictured in the lady of his dreams; this was so much lovelier. He
did not care for tall girls; he had not cared for them for almost
half an hour. It was so much more beautiful to be dainty and small and
piquant. He had no notion that he was sighing in a way that would have
put a furnace to shame, but he turned his eyes from her because he
feared that if he looked longer he might blurt out some speech about
her beauty. His glance rested on the bank; but its diameter included
the edge of her white skirt and the tip of a little, white, high-heeled
slipper that peeped out beneath it; and he had to look away from that,
too, to keep from telling her that he meant to advocate a law compelling
all women to wear crisp, white gowns and white slippers on moonlight
nights.

She picked a long spear of grass from the turf before her, twisted it
absently in her fingers, then turned to him slowly. Her lips parted
as if to speak. Then she turned away again. The action was so odd, and
somehow, as she did it, so adorable, and the preserved silence was such
a bond between them, that for his life he could not have helped moving
half-way up the bench toward her.

"What is it?" he asked; and he spoke in a whisper he might have used at
the bedside of a dying friend. He would not have laughed if he had known
he did so. She twisted the spear of grass into a little ball and threw
it at a stone in the water before she answered.

"Do you know, Mr. Harkless, you and I haven't 'met,' have we? Didn't we
forget to be presented to each other?"

"I beg your pardon. Miss Sherwood. In the perturbation of comedy I
forgot."

"It was melodrama, wasn't it?"