the house it was rather wild and very
shady. The rector's youngest sister, Perpetua, kept house for
him, a girl whose English coloring took a pretty and subdued
form; Hood and the explorer were much interested in her romance.
The curate, Warner said, was her continual worshipper. He was a
keen sort of curate that.

She had been kind to him till quite recently. Now she was
uninterested, or seemed so.

The Good-bye of the reunion came round, but the explorer and Hood
went not with the others. The married guests went off to their
home comforts, but these two stayed on for at least a week more.
They became fast friends with both Perpetua and the curate, but
they found it best for social joy not to mix them.

Perpetua shared a sailing expedition with the strangers. Therein
they explored much of the Evenlode, the hay-harvest breeze
favoring them. Another day she went with them afoot to the
Hinkseys. Certain moot points of poetic identification were
hardly settled by that trip, so another followed. They came home
by Cumner both days.

'She would do for Africa,' confided the explorer to Hood one
night. The village band had been playing, and they had thought no
scorn of it. The groups under the dreaming garden trees, and the
full moon, and the white evening-star' had been memorable that
evening.

'She might do for Africa,' said Hood doubtfully, 'but I wouldn't
let her go and spoil her complexion.'

'If you were the curate?' asked the explorer with a smile.

'What's he to do with it?' said Hood impatiently. 'Didn't he
almost promise he'd sail with me in two months' time? I want him
for work.'

'That's too bad,' said the explorer; 'cut that labor-agent
business. Let him stay at home and marry Perpetua. There's a
family living waiting for him across the river. Won't they be
happy just?'

'I don't know,' said Hood, thinking fast.

Next morning the explorer had a touch of fever. The village
doctor dropped in as an anxious friend. He mustered up his
courage to prescribe two grains of quinine. His patient smiled,
and promised to take them with additions. Then he went to sleep,
and left Hood to escort Perpetua to Bab-lock-hythe. She was
adventurous that afternoon. 'She has outgrown the curate,' Hood
thought. The explorer's words recurred to him: 'She might do for
Africa.' 'Not if I know it,' he answered them in his own mind.

His interest in her grew that day, and the next day, when the
explorer was convalescent. The d